Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas is working against the tide of Palestinian public opinion, as voiced in a recent survey conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research in Ramallah. According to this poll, only 22 percent of respondents support a resumption of the so-called peace talks, while 53 percent say they regard resistance as "the more effective way” to realize the creation of a Palestinian state.

The results of the poll contradict all the charges leveled by Abbas, Fatah and Israel against the resistance and Hamas. Of those polled, 79 percent believe that the resistance emerged victorious from the recent war, while 86 percent support the defensive use of rockets.

That explains why the criminal regime of Israel continues to impose the illegal closure of Gaza. The regime’s blockade, in force since Hamas won Palestinian general elections and only partially eased after the recent war, can be described as an intensification of criminal policies designed to isolate the population of Gaza, cripple its fragile economy, and provoke its people against Hamas by harsh and illegal measures of collective punishment.

However, these desperate actions are not all new: The blockade is but the terminal end of Israel’s closure policy, in place since 1991, which in turn builds on the usurper’s policies as occupier since 1967.

According to Western experts and human rights groups’ reports, in practice, "Israel’s blockade means the denial of a broad range of data-x-items - food, industrial, educational, medical - deemed non-essential for a population largely unable to be self-sufficient at the end of decades of occupation”.

There can be no dispute that the measures of collective punishment against the civilian population of Gaza are illegal under international humanitarian law: "Fuel, food and medicine cannot be withheld or wielded as reward or punishment.”

But international law was tossed aside a long time ago. The blockade has been presented as punishment for the democratic election of Hamas; punishment for its subsequent takeover of Gaza; and punishment for justified resistance through attacks on illegal Zionist settlements.

The UN and the international community continue to criticize Israel over its blockade of Gaza. But, criticism alone is not enough. The international community needs to do more than just talk!

It should also be stressed that to accuse the resistance and Hamas of prolonging the conflict is to exonerate the occupation power of responsibility. The Western/Zionist media is quick to capitalize on this, further proof of the extensive coverage the campaign has received.

Indeed, those who fire rockets at illegal Israeli settlements make a valid point. These random attacks should not evoke a hasty effort to seal off the occupied territory. Instead, they should make the Zionist regime question how to avoid such attacks in the future.

The answer is simple: Stop raiding Gaza and killing its innocent civilians for political gains, lift the illegal blockade, and start honoring the sanctity of life in the besieged enclave