The lawyer who hopes Baroness Ashton can free her from Gaza

The EU's top foreign policy official will be urged tomorrow to step up pressure on Israel to open its Erez crossing to more Gazans after a Supreme Court decision barred a lawyer from travelling to the West Bank for a master's degree course in democracy and human rights.

The ruling on the test case has dashed any hopes that Israel's easing of the three-year closure of the Gaza Strip would quickly allow greater freedom of movement for its public, including students and businessmen who want to leave the territory temporarily via Israel.

Israel has operated a blanket ban on Gaza students going to universities in the West Bank since the outbreak of the first intifada in 2000.

Fatma Sharif, a lawyer and human rights activist who should have registered for the course at Birzeit University, Ramallah, this week, is hoping personally to raise her case with Baroness Ashton, the EU's Foreign and Security High Representative, when she makes her second visit this year to the Strip.

Tony Blair, the representative for the Middle East Quartet of the US, UN, Russia and the EU, has among others urged Israel to extend the easing of restrictions that it announced after the lethal commando raid on a Turkish-led flotilla six weeks ago to cover the movement of people, subject to legitimate security concerns.

After several meetings between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Blair, Israel agreed to substitute a list of "banned" goods for the previous and heavily restrictive list of those allowed into Gaza, and to increase limited quantities of cement and other building materials for selected and internationally supervised infrastructure projects.

On individual travel, the Cabinet pledged to streamline procedures for medical and humanitarian cases, along with employees of recognised international NGOs. It said that "as conditions improve, Israel will consider additional ways of facilitating the movement of people to and from Gaza."

In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that instead of operating a blanket ban on students, the state should consider allowing access for Gazans to study in the West Bank in "cases that would have positive human consequences".

No student – including ones in medical and paramedical disciplines not taught in Gaza – has in fact been allowed to study in the West Bank since that ruling.

In a response to a petition by Ms Sharif and the Israeli human rights organisation, Gisha, this month, the Court accepted the state's argument that there was no cause to intervene in its decision to bar the human rights lawyer.

Deputy State Prosecutor Ilil Amir told the High Court this month that it was dangerous to allow students like Ms Sharif to travel to the West Bank because Israel had to stop armed factions setting up "branches of the Gaza terrorist infrastructure in the West Bank", and one way of doing so was by "restricting movement between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank".

Ms Sharif, 29, a law graduate, works for Al Mezan, a respected independent human rights organisation, which has frequently criticised the de facto Hamas government in Gaza, as well as Israel, for allegedly repressive acts.

She said this week that all attacks on civilians, including Israeli civilians, were breaches of international law. Ms Sharif is also an active campaigner for women's rights.

Ms Sharif said that one of her inspirations for doing the Birzeit degree – which has no equivalent in most of the Arab world, including Gaza – was the incorporation of human rights in the curriculum of UN schools in Gaza.

The lawyer, who wants to expand her activities in training other professionals in human rights, praised the curriculum but said that teachers in the subject needed to receive specialist training.

Ms Sharif said she was "upset" and "angry" at the ban and pointed out that under the Oslo accords Israel had pledged to treat the West Bank and Gaza as a single entity, even though it is impossible to travel between the two without passing through Israel.

She said she wanted to go to improve her qualifications and experience and she was determined to return to Gaza to put her knowledge to use.

"Our idea is to be armed with words and the law, not with explosives," she said. The lawyer added that she feared the Israeli government "wants not only to collectively punish us but they want us to be isolated. They want us [in Gaza] to be living alone."

In its response to the petition, the state argued that the Cabinet decision of 6 July did not affect the current criteria for travel and added: "It does nothing to expand [these] criteria and it certainly does not permit passage for the purpose of masters' degrees."