Why is it that the U.S. press has not reported on the recent statements by Hamas' leader Ismail Haniya?

GAZA CITY, Gaza -- Following intensive negotiations with Hamas, the de facto leadership of Gaza, a group of European parliamentarians has been told by the organization that it will accept a Palestinian state within the internationally recognized 1967 borders as well as offer Israel a long-term ceasefire.

The delegation of 11 from Britain, Ireland, Switzerland and Italy, managed to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza on Saturday morning after their boat, the Dignity, sailed from Cyprus to Gaza, shadowed part of the way by an Israeli naval vessel.

You'd think such statements would be considered newsworthy by the U.S. press. But no word of this.

Meanwhile, the UN relief agency UNWRA said that if Israel did not open the blockade of Gaza it would have to halt it's food aid to nearly 750,000 Palestinians.

The UN in the Gaza Strip says it will run out of food aid in two days unless Israel's blockade - which it describes as "shameful and unacceptable" - eases.

The UN refugee agency UNRWA, which distributes food to half of Gaza's 1,5m people, called the blockade "a physical as well as a mental punishment".

Israel is now allowing a limited amount of fuel across the border, but it is still blocking food deliveries.

It says it tightened sanctions because of rocket attacks by militants.

The Islamist group Hamas, which controls Gaza, said the rockets were a response to an Israeli raid that killed six gunmen on 4 November.

Gaza's only power plant was closed on Monday, after Israel stopped fuel deliveries.

Aid agencies estimate the new deliveries of fuel will run out within a day-and-a-half.

On his blog, Informed Consent, Mideast expert Juan Cole had this to say about the food blockade:

A food blockade? That is a war crime! Why aren't the people ordering the malnourishment of a civilian population under foreign military occupation being arrested and taken to the Hague for trial?

I mean, people in the US are routinely arrested for animal abuse because they kept their pets malnourished. Wouldn't it be a crime to do that to Palestinian children?

I know that there's a lot of debate right now about what Obama should or will do regarding the I-P conflict, but surely we cannot allow our most important ally in the Mideast to starve Palestinians, including innocent men, women and children who are not even Hamas supporters but are simply trapped in the Israeli Occupation of Gaza. Please write your representatives today and ask them to try to relieve this shameful humanitarian crisis.