Obama urges Israel to limit Gaza Strip blockade

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for sharply limiting Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip in the wake of the botched Israeli naval raid that's straining U.S. and Israeli relations with allies around the world.

The White House also announced a $400-million aid package for Gaza and the West Bank.

"The situation in Gaza is unsustainable," Obama declared as he met with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Oval Office.

He said the attention of the world is on the problem because of the "tragedy" of the Israeli raid that killed nine people trying to bring in supplies.

Obama called for narrowly tailoring Israel's broad blockade on goods entering the Gaza Strip so that arms are kept out, but not food, building materials or other items needed for the Palestinians' daily life and economic development.

"The key here is making sure that Israel's security needs are met but that the needs of people in Gaza are also met," Obama said.

"So if we can get a new conceptual framework . . . it seems to me that we should be able to take what has been a tragedy and turn it into an opportunity to create a situation where lives in Gaza are actually, directly improved."

The approach marked a shift although it stopped well short of meeting international calls for an end to the 3-year-old blockade, which Israel says is needed to keep arms away from the militant Hamas movement that controls Gaza. Critics say the blockade is ineffective and causes undue suffering.

Obama said the United States would discuss the new approach with European leaders, Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

The $400 million in aid the president announced for the West Bank and Gaza is meant to improve access to clean drinking water, create jobs, build schools and address health, housing and other needs.

Abbas welcomed the aid package as a positive sign "that the United States cares about the people in Gaza and about the suffering of the Palestinian people."

He called for more dramatic steps on the blockade.

"We also see the need to lift the Israeli siege of the Palestinian people, the need to open all the crossings and the need to let building material and humanitarian material and all the necessities go into the Palestinian people," said Abbas, whose actual influence over Gaza is slight, since his forces were routed when Hamas took over the area in 2007.

The meeting between the two leaders came a little more than a week after Israel's deadly May 31 raid on a flotilla hoping to break the blockade on Gaza. Nine men in the flotilla were killed, including eight Turks and a Turkish American. Israel says its soldiers opened fire only after being attacked, while the flotilla activists accuse Israel of using unnecessary violence.