EXCLUSIVE PICTURES
During a visit to the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Baroness Catherine Ashton, Vice President of the European Commission and high representative of the European Union for foreign affairs and security policy said that the EU must end the suffering of the people of the Gaza and lift the siege which began nearly four years ago. At a news conference, Ashton said that her visit was vital to becoming better acquainted with the humanitarian consequences of the blockade as well as the impact this has upon rebuilding in the region following the devastation caused during the war.
Ashton met with United Nations officials in Gaza and commended the efforts and programs directed to assist and support the people of the sector in their current situation. She mentioned having visited an UNRWA school in Beit Lahiya and was please to see the enthusiasm and passion of Gaza's children to continue with their education and to get on with their lives. She mentioned having visited a UN distribution centre for assistance and expressed a hoped that her visit would achieve its objectives of being able to improve the difficult conditions experienced by the people of the sector.
Ashton stressed that she would endeavour to convey a sense of the great suffering being experienced in Gaza, during a meeting of the international Quartet scheduled to be held in the Russian capital, Moscow, tomorrow. Members of the Quartet which include the US, Russia, the EU and the UN will be meeting to assess the situation surrounding the resumption of peace talks between the PA and Israel following the recent set-back experienced by US efforts to mediate proximity talks between the two.
The visit to Gaza formed part of a trip which included appointments to meet with dignitaries and officials in Syria, Jordan, Egypt, the Israeli entity and the Palestinian Authority in order to get an overview of all the points of view that exist in the region before heading to the meeting of the Quartet. She said that there was a lot of work to be done in order to end this situation, adding that the European Union was committed to working towards a peaceful solution to the situation in the region.
The Commissioner General of UNRWA, Filippo Grandi, affirmed that Ashton's visit to Gaza was very important, especially given that the European Union is the largest donor to the Agency. Ashton is the highest level European official to visit the Strip since Hamas came to power in 2007. Grandi added that the Agency gave Ashton a message to take to the outside world about what she saw, and it will be a message to the European Union and the international community as a whole to end the suffering of Gazans.
MEMO Photographer: Mohammed Asad
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Comments
Where are the news ? What is sensational ?
Unfortunately, and i am not trying to be nasty, you are saying the exact same things that are being said ten, twenty and fifty years ago.
We need someone to come up with new courageous ideas if we really want to try and find a solution.
The main idea is to help the Palestinians help themselves. As long as you provide aid and money to their leaders whose only idea is the hatred and destruction of Israel, no matter what you say or what you do there will be no solution.
Arab countries, with their natural resources of oil and gas are amongst the richest in the world. How come none ever raised the point that the Palestinians, their direct "brothers" or at least "cousins" as they call them, have never benefited from any of this wealth. How come the whole world is so full of hypocrisy to turn a blind eye on the differences between what the Jewish people gave out to Israel as support against the almost zero contribution of the "Arab" to those miserable Palestinians?
I believe i have a solution although not being a diplomat and not weighing enough the personal interests of leaders put before those of their people and probably few more issues some of them might look too utopia.
Nevertheless a person like you, with other people, whose interests, i want to believe, should be able to forge these ideas to something much more sustainable and everlasting viable.
1. Israel was menaced since 1947 to be destroyed - so we should make sure that these verbal and physical threats disappear
2. Arabs pretend that Israel sits on occupied territories. It is true for Gaza and the Golan. The west bank never belonged to nobody and thus cannot be occupied.
3. This does not mean that Israel should not withdraw from the west bank as well to allow settle a Palestinian country, but it should come on a mutual agreement that what Israel has already developed should be Israeli and that alternative grounds to the milometer close should be given to the Palestinian so that they can with Israeli technology and Arab money build the same - if not better quality of life - on their own.
For example, Egypt does not use 1% of its territory in Sinai. The whole world encouraged by the IMF and the Arab counties could receive a piece of land - the size of Gaza strip - continuing along the Mediterranean sea and doubling the Gaza strip actual size, in which can be built high level standard housing, schools, universities, industries sea and airport.
Israel on its part could give some pieces of land in the Negev and even let the "Palestinians" in arab cities and villages inside Israel join their "palestinian" authority if they preffer with their lands and their richness.
Once done, people would be offered to move there and the same could be done in the "old" Gaza strip into which later could be moved half of the west bank population and then repeat the technique in the west bank. Within 20 -30 years you can transfer this mostly very poor, very frustrated, very un liberal and very bitter people to a prosperous neighbour praising Israel cooperation and forgetting the animosity of the past. This will naturally delegitimize the "Jihad" ideas, this will give these people something to lose that would be worthwhile watching and keeping and distant them from adventurous attacks on Israel.
Furthermore if we are unfortunate in this very specific region of the Mediterranean basin with natural resources we should create them ourselves.
There has been an idea of curving a huge tunnel between the Mediterranean sea and the dead sea, This tunnel can solve the problem of lack of sweet water in the region, the lack of electrical power that could be easily created by the sea level differences between these points and beyond all a motorway between Gaza and the west bank that will create one country with an attached road not being interfered by the Israelis.
So you only have to shaken your friends and neighbours and this dream can become a reality at 0 times in the perspective of history
Only a generation or two of substentail sepaqration can bring a rosy future. and this is what the world should aspire to.
On the long term this will give no excuses to Iran, afghanistan, El qaida and others and maybe, just maybe our grand children have a chance to grow to a better world (if not wonderful)
Best
Micky tiroche
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