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UN chief Ban calls on Israel to lift Gaza siege

Israel Materials 22 March 2010 04:49 (UTC +04:00)
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called Sunday on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, as he visited the impoverished salient to examine first hand the humanitarian situation
UN chief Ban calls on Israel to lift Gaza siege

United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon called Sunday on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, as he visited the impoverished salient to examine first hand the humanitarian situation, dpa reported.

US special envoy George Mitchell, meanwhile, handed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a formal invitation to meet with President Barack Obama in Washington, amid reports Israel and the US are trying to defuse a smouldering row sparked by an announcement of new Israeli construction in occupied East Jerusalem.

Addressing a news conference in the southern Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, Ban said the "unacceptable" blockade increased suffering while "weakening the moderates, and encourages the extremists."

Israel imposed the tight blockade on the coastal territory in June 2006, after Gaza-based militants launched a cross-border raid and snatched Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Shalit is still being held somewhere in the strip, and efforts to negotiate his release have so far proved fruitless.

Ban, who entered the enclave Sunday morning, visited two sites, a neighbourhood east of the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza, targeted in last year's 22-day Israeli military offensive against Gaza militias, and a UN-sponsored housing project in Khan Younis.

The UN plans to build 150 new homes at the Khan Younis site to house families who lost their homes during the Israeli offensive.

Israel launched the offensive in late December 2008 in response to repeated militant rocket fire on its southern towns and villages. Some 1,400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed in the 22 days of fighting and thousands of homes and buildings were destroyed, according to human rights organizations.

"It is frustrating to see this destruction in Gaza and not be able to reconstruct," Ban said.

"I condemn all military actions that lead to the killing of Israelis and Palestinians. Conflicts can only be resolved through out negotiations."

His visit to Israel and the Palestinian areas coincides with another tour to the region by US special envoy Mitchell, who met Sunday with Israeli officials.

The envoy had been scheduled to visit last week, but his trip was delayed as a result of the Israeli-US dispute sparked by the announcement of new homes being built in an East Jerusalem neighbourhood located on the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu told his cabinet at its weekly session Sunday morning that "our policy toward Jerusalem is the same policy of all Israeli governments in the past 42 years, and it has not changed."

"From our point-of-view, construction in Jerusalem is like construction in Tel Aviv," he said.

Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war and regards it as part of its undivided, eternal capital.

Palestinians, however, want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state, and anger over the announcement of the new homes scuttled an agreement to hold indirect peace talks under the aegis of the US.

The announcement generated an angry reaction from the US, but in recent days Washington appears to be toning down the rhetoric, with Secretary of State Clinton describing her Thursday conversation with Netanyahu as "useful and productive."

The Israeli premier, scheduled to leave Sunday night for the US to address the conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), will likely meet with the president on Tuesday.

Mitchell, who termed his talks with Defence Minister Ehud Barak "a productive discussion on a full range of issues," said that Israel and the US shared the goal of "the resumption of negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, in an environment in which they can result in an agreement that ends the conflict."

Meanwhile, the Jerusalem municipality postponed new building plans in East Jerusalem to avoid new diplomatic rows, Israeli army radio reported Sunday. City officials canceled a Monday committee meeting that was to have planned construction of 12 new houses in Har Homa in East Jerusalem, unrelated to the housing that sparked last week's row.

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