French Foreign Minister wraps up Gaza visit amid Palestinians' rage
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Foreign Minister of France Michele Alliot-Marie wrapped up a four-hour visit in the Gaza Strip to check up the humanitarian situation, where angry relatives of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails received her with shoes and rotten eggs.
As soon as Alliot-Marie's convoy arrived from Israel Erez border crossing, where dozens of furious relatives of Palestinian prisoners received her near the borders with signs saying she is not welcome, while other protesters jumped on her car or laid down on the road to block the convoy.
After the convoy, accompanied by United Nations vehicles and officials, was blocked for around ten minutes, Hamas police, which rules the Gaza Strip, intervened and dispersed the protesters and let the convoy pass through. It is the first time for Alliot-Marie to visit Gaza since November.
A Xinhua reporter said that despite the furious protests against her visit, she faced the angry protesters with smiles, while her personal bodyguards were tensed and upset. Alliot-Marie' s deputy for development affairs was lightly hurt while pushing the protesters, who tried to penetrate the convoy.
The protesters were angry at Alliot-Marie saying that the previous statements she made earlier on Thursday in Israel that keeping the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in Gaza captivity "is a war crime." Later she said that her statements were misinterpreted.
Shalit was abducted during a cross-border raid on an Israeli army base southeast of the Gaza Strip carried out by Hamas militants and two other smaller armed groups in June 2006. Shalit' s captors demanded that Israel has to free 1,000 prisoners from its jails for Shalit's release.
Israeli Radio quoted Alliot-Marie as saying during a meeting with Shalit's father in Israel on Thursday that keeping Shalit in captivity "is a war crime." Alliot-Marie denied to Gaza representatives of rights groups she met with during her visit that she said such a sentence, and that she was misunderstood.
A senior French diplomatic source told Xinnua that Alliot-Marie didn't say that keeping Shalit in captivity is a war crime, adding that the one who said this sentence was Shalit's father Noam Shali, when he received Alliot-Marie. The relatives of the prisoners accused Alliot-Marie for being biased towards Israel.
Saber Abu Karsh, director of the pro-prisoners "Wa'ed" Association, loyal to Hamas movement, who joined the protests told Xinhua that the statements of Alliot-Marie "had provoked the families of the prisoners because it contradict with the democracy that her country France is adopting."
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said in a press statement emailed to reporters that the statements of Alliot-Marie "are biased towards Israel," adding that she neglected thousands of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails.
"Shalit was abducted in the field of the battle while he was killing Palestinians near the borders, while there are thousand of prisoners who were abducted from their homes for no reason," said Abu Zuhri.
The protests hadn't influenced Alliot-Marie's visit in Gaza, where she held talks with UN officials, visited al-Quds Hospital that France helped to renovate it after it was partially destroyed by Israel. She also held a meeting with Gaza rights groups at the French Cultural Center in western Gaza City.
Alliot-Marie didn't hold any talks with Hams rulers of the Gaza Strip. However, Adnan Abu Hasna, spokesman of UNRWA said that Alliot-Marie listened carefully to the economical and humanitarian situations in Gaza, adding that she met with children and listened to their daily difficulties.
Meanwhile, Alliot-Marie called on Israel to end more than three years of a blockade had been imposed on the Gaza Strip. She told reporters at the French Cultural Center that "in the name of freedom and dignity, we call on Israel to lift the blockade which will reactivate poverty and feed violence."
She also reiterated that her country is committed to a peaceful solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. "France position has never changed, where peace can be made through out establishing a Palestinian state and Gaza is an important part like the West Bank."
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