JERUSALEM: Five European parliamentarians said on Wednesday that Israeli authorities had prevented them from entering the Gaza Strip.

“The refusal of access to Gaza by the Israeli authorities to the European Parliament on arbitrary grounds is unacceptable,” Cypriot MEP Neoklis Sylikiotis said in a statement.

Similar delegations of European lawmakers have been barred from entering the Palestinian coastal enclave since 2011, the statement added, though a team led by the head of the European Parliament’s budget committee was allowed to visit once.

“What is there to hide from us?” it said, condemning what it called “systematic” entry bans.

Israel, which controls all access to empoverished Gaza apart from its southern border with Egypt, explained parliamentarians were not among those allowed to enter the territory.

Published in Dawn, February 23rd, 2017