Martin Nesirky, spokesman for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon announced that aid bound for Gaza must be delivered over land through Israeli-approved routes. Said Nesirky: "There are established routes for supplies to enter by land. That is the way aid should be delivered to the people of Gaza. Our stated preference has been and remains that aid should be delivered by established routes particularly at a sensitive time in indirect proximity talks between Palestinians and Israelis."

According to news reports, this ill-advised UN statement was prompted by a letter from Gabriella Shalev, the Israeli ambassador to the UN, to the Security Council and to the UN secretary general, warning that "Israel reserves its right under international law to prevent these ships [referring to two Lebanese ships on their way to Gaza] from violating the naval blockade".

Neither the Security Council nor the secretary general had the nerve to question Israel's right to lay blockade to a third-party territory or to demand that Israel reveal the international law provisions on which its action it rests.

The blockade is illegal under international law, as the International Committee of the Red Cross recently confirmed. The entity that continues to impose the blockade, Israel, has no right to maintain an unprecedented measure of collective punishment on innocent civilians besieged in the largest ever open-air prison. Yet Israel acts on its own, in flagrant defiance of any rules that govern international behaviour.

The 1.5 million inhabitants of the narrow Gaza Strip are not allowed to leave their prison. They are not allowed to import their needs except in quantities that just prevent starvation. Neither are they permitted to export any of their agricultural products to external markets to keep them at a bare survival level.

The population of Gaza has to suffer. It has to feel the callousness of the punishment in its daily routine. It has been under this severe regime of chastisement for over five years for multiple reasons.

First and foremost, it is responsible for creating an environment unsuitable for a smooth colonisation by Israeli settlers. Israel started its colonisation scheme shortly after it occupied Gaza and the West Bank (in addition to the other Arab territories in its "preemptive" war in June 1967). Unlike in the West Bank and in the Syrian Golan Heights, Gaza did not prove to be an easy environment for territorial expansion. Despite intensive Israeli occupation army presence in the strip, the protection of 8,000?settlers proved costly, dangerous and untenable.

In the spring of 2004, Ariel Sharon, Israeli prime minister at the time, decided to "disengage" from Gaza by removing both the occupation army and the settlers. The plan was implemented in August 2005. Although Sharon’s plan was presented as a gesture for peace, and was unduly rewarded by the United States which granted him a written promise in April 2004 that the West Bank settlements were to be considered irreversible facts on the ground in any future peace agreement, an additional 12,000 settlers were a?ded to the West Bank settlements.

The settlers were indeed removed from Gaza, but it will be a flagrant denial of the truth to talk about an "end" of the Israeli occupation. The Israeli army has continued, since August 2005, to control Gaza from land, sea and sky, only allowing minimum survival level of commodities to reach the besieged population. From September 2005, Israel bombed Gaza frequently, killing hundreds of civilians, regular attacks that culminated in the massacre during "Operation Cast Lead".

There are three other alleged reasons for keeping the siege, actually tightening it. One was the Palestinian general elections in January 2006, which swept Hamas into power. The second was the capture of an Israeli soldier enforcing the blockade on Gaza on June 25, 2006, in a military operation by the resistance. The third were the rockets fired by Hamas and other resistance factions, often mocked as "futile" fireworks.

Israel has been using those pretexts as "legal" justification for keeping Gaza under siege; in the naive "international community" belief, the siege would end if the Israeli prisoner of war were released. That is not true. Gaza cannot be set free as long as there is another occupation in the West Bank. Keeping Gaza under control is a "security necessity" to prevent any form of effective resistance from growing in that area.

By endorsing Israeli action to block the maritime routes to Gaza, the UN now openly collaborates with Israel and the other regional forces that helped maintain the siege. The UN is effectively helping Israel carry out the collective punishment of civilians in Gaza, in direct violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

It, of course, has no right to determine which routes any country may choose to bring in supplies. In short, the UN is breaking the law, betraying its mandate and violating the provisions of its own charter, in addition, of course, to demonstrating utter weakness and submissiveness.

More shocking is the feeble attempt to link the restriction of the Gaza supply routes to land access with the US-sponsored "proximity talks", as if they existed or had any value, as if they were more than a scandalous farce.

The rights of the Palestinian people under the Fourth Geneva Convention are not conditional on the existence of "proximity talks" or any other kind of "peace process".

It is shameful for the UN to descend to such a low level of meekness at a time when world peace and stability are suffering from creeping dangers. The threats and the dire conditions of world affairs require, on the contrary, an activation of a sadly dormant UN role, and not the UN joining the chorus of complicity

One should remember, however, that the UN constitutes one quarter of the self-appointed Quartet, which is a major sponsor of the Gaza siege and the proximity talks show. Thus, one should really not be shocked that the UN is now helping Israel enforce the Gaza blockade and prolong, rather than end, the suffering there.