A senior Egyptian Foreign Ministry official called Monday on the international community to press Israel to lift the siege on the Gaza Strip for humanitarian relief.
Abd el-Rahman Salah, Assistant Foreign Minister for Foreign Affairs, made the call at an interpellation of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the People's Assembly (lower house of the parliament), the state MENA news agency reported.
Salah was quoted as saying that Israel is responsible for lifting the siege imposed on Gaza and offering daily necessities for the people living in the Palestinian enclave.
Israel should allow foodstuff and humanitarian aid to reach the Palestinians, Salah stressed.
Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza and closed down all the commercial border crossings with the coastal strip after Palestinian Islamic Hamas movement took control of the enclave by force in mid-June last year.
In spite of an Egyptian-brokered six-month truce between Israel and Hamas-led Gaza armed groups, violent conflicts between the two sides flared up early last month and then Israel has completely closed down all Gaza crossing points.