Khudari invites Kouchner to visit Gaza via Rafah crossing

[22/10/2009 - 11:10 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)--

Independent MP Jamal Al-Khudari, the head of the popular committee against the siege, invited French external affairs minister Bernard Kouchner to visit Gaza Strip via the Rafah crossing after Israel refused to allow him access through the Erez crossing.

Khudari in a press statement on Thursday said that such a visit was very important to inform Kouchner on the conditions in the Strip as a result of the stringent Israeli siege and its catastrophic results along with the devastating consequences of the last Israeli war on Gaza.

The MP noted that tens of Arab and international officials visited Gaza through Rafah terminal and got acquainted with the suffering of one and a half million Palestinians and their needs.

The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) opposes such visits on the part of international officials because they would get first hand information on the tragic situation in Gaza and the IOA war crimes.

In a new development related to results of the siege, a 45-year-old Palestinian man died in Gaza on Wednesday after inability to travel abroad for treatment of cancer due to the Israeli siege.

The health ministry in Gaza said that Farid Abu Ode was denied exit permit by the IOA despite his long suffering of cancer bringing the number of siege victims to 361.

It appealed to the world community to stand alongside the people of Gaza and their besieged patients and to pressure the IOA into opening all crossings and ending its aggression on the Palestinian people.

Masri: Kouchner's insistence to visit Gaza step in the right direction

[ 22/10/2009 - 11:02 AM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian MP Mushir Al-Masri of Hamas Movement has described the insistence of French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner to visit the besieged Gaza Strip as a "step in the right direction" in dealing with Hamas.

"The fact that Kouchner has cancelled his planned visit to the region after the Israeli occupation authority rejected his trip to Gaza reflects that France, in particular, and Europe, in general, had started to realize that they couldn’t ignore facts on the ground anymore and that they should deal with Hamas", Masri pointed out in press statements on Wednesday.

He added, "France and Europe realized that ignoring Hamas wouldn’t benefit them, and that the person whom they had wagered on in the region was feeble and doesn’t possess the authority to decide on behalf of the Palestinian people, and that Hamas became an essential player in the region that couldn’t be ignored".

"This conviction of France and Europe would, surely, have its implications in delineating the West's Middle East policy", he opined.

On the other hand, Masri deprecated the threats of Fatah leader in the West Bank Mahmoud Abbas of holding Palestinian elections in the West Bank if Hamas refused to sign the "lame duck" reconciliation agreement, describing Abbas's behavior as "extortion".

Hamas said that the "modified" Egyptian paper, which Fatah had signed doesn’t reflect exactly what the Palestinian factions had agreed on.

"Abbas's stand contradicts Egypt and Hamas's stands of holding general elections only after achieving the Palestinian national reconciliation. He (Abbas) is trying to pressure and extort Hamas exactly as what the Israeli enemy is doing, but we in Hamas won't sign any agreement without guarantees", he underlined.

"We don’t trust Abbas and we have no guarantees that he would implement what we would agree upon and sign", he explained, stressing that Hamas Movement was and still is the most concerned with ending the Palestinian political rift, and that it was too flexible in dealing with this matter.

"What Hamas really wants is to make the Egyptian paper go in harmony with what the factions had agreed upon, but Abbas wants to portray himself as a democracy czar although he was the one who jumped over the democracy after he installed an illegitimate government without the approval of the Palestinian parliament, and after he illegally extended his term as PA chief, and blocked the duly elected PLC speaker Dr. Aziz Al-Duwaik from assuming his job in the legislature", Masri highlighted.

In this regard, Masri asserted that Abbas doesn’t possess the legal capacity to take any political step before the Palestinian harmony is achieved. "We want to give him (Abbas) the legitimacy through harmony so he can practice his duty as PA chief, but without harmony he wouldn’t possess that legitimacy".

In the same context, Masri shrugged off rumors suggesting discrepancy between leaders of Hamas in occupied Palestine and Hamas leaders in Diaspora, adding that certain suspicious media outlets keep on parroting such illusionary rumors.

"We pay no attention to those rumors because truth speaks for itself on the ground", Masri concluded.