Richard Falk, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, said on Thursday the move was part of Israel's "cruel blockade of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza" in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Falk, an American expert on international law, said Israel's two-year blockade of Hamas-ruled Gaza restricted vital supplies such as food, medicine and fuel to "bare subsistence levels."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a report this week that Israel was also halting entry to Gaza of building materials and spare parts needed to repair damage from its 22-day invasion late last December.

Falk said authorities in Cyprus, where the ship had departed from, had informed Israeli authorities that the vessel carried no weapons.

But the 21 peace activists on the boat were arrested and charged with ‘illegal entry' to Israel even though they had no intention of going to Israel," Falk added.

Irish Nobel peace prize laureate Mairead Maguire and former US congresswoman and presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney were among those aboard and have been in jail nearly a week now, the US-based Free Gaza organization said.

McKinney is known for her opposition to the US wars in Iraq and

Afghanistan and her scathing critiques of US middle east policy.

Maguire won the Nobel for her peace work in Northern Ireland and in 2007 was shot with rubber bullets as she protested Israeli policy.

Israel is allowing relief aid to reach Gaza in coordination with Egypt and the Palestinian Authority, said Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Aharon Leshno-Yaar.

Israel refuses to recognize democratically-elected Hamas as the authority in Gaza though the government in Tel Aviv funded the Islamic movement in the 70s as a weapon against the secular Palestinian Liberation Organization, according to a United Press International report.

A UN inquiry into alleged war crimes by both Israel and Hamas militants in the recent conflict held public hearings in Gaza this week and will also hear testimony in Geneva next week.

Source: Reuters