Vigil for Gaza .

This territory, is an open air prison to its 1.5 million Palestinian residents, 1.1 million of whom have to survive on food handouts. They are suffering a cruel and severe humanitarian crisis. Israel has cut off fuel supplies and prevented other vital supplies entering from Israel - as a result of the Israeli blockade supplies of food and medical equipment are nearly exhausted in the hospitals and clinics.

The Israeli blockade of Gaza is illegal under international law which prohibits collective punishment of a civilian population.

Israel’s latest extrajudicial killings of 12 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in a series of air attacks, brings the number of extrajudicial killing operations launched since September 2000 to at least 256, killing at least 612 Palestinians, many of them women and children.

The blockade is having a devastating effect on the humanitarian situation in Gaza ; the continued political and economic isolation of Gaza will jeopardise the prospects for a lasting peace and for any future negotiations to be credible and successful.

We call upon the UK Government to make the strongest possible representations to the Israeli government that such measures are wholly unacceptable and tantamount to collective punishment and a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention.