“I look with great interest at what the Israeli government has said and this is an “in principle” statement at this stage, “ EU’s foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said Thursday in a reaction to Israel’s announcement that it would “liberalize” the entry of goods into the Gaza Strip.
The changes, which came after two days of deliberations of the Security Cabinet, will be further discussed in the coming days.
Israel said it will continue with existing security protocols, in order to "prevent the inflow of weapons and war materials, adding that Israel "expects the international community to work toward the immediate release of captured IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.”
Speaking on the margins of a European summit meeting, Ashton said that the EU has offered its support to Israel “if we can be of value.”
“We hope that the ‘in principle’ statement of the government of Israel can now be followed up very quickly with the detail which we shall look at with interest and hope that we can push forward, offer our support, and ensure that the people of Gaza can now actually move to a normal life.”
She stated: “We’ve said there should be a change from a list of goods that are allowed into Gaza, a reversal of that, to a list of goods that are not allowed, in order to make sure that many many more goods can get into Gaza to enable people to reconstruct their homes, to build schools, to replace infrastructure and also to allow people to get on with their ordinary lives.”
Ashton said she would meet on Friday in Brussels with people involved in the EU’s work in the Middle East “to see what we can offer and then we can move forward , if that would be useful for Israel and for the Palestinian Authority.”
Asked by a journalist for a comment on Israel's announcement, EU Council President Herman Van Rompuy only referred to Ashton's statement.