GAZA CITY: Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s sister-in-law said yesterday she is trapped in Gaza because Israel refuses to let her leave the Palestinian territory she entered aboard a protest boat. “They have made it clear I won’t be admitted to Israel,” said Lauren Booth, a British journalist and pro-Palestinian campaigner.
Israeli authorities have rejected Booth’s request to leave the Gaza Strip, arguing she did not enter legally when she and another 43 pro-Palestinian activists traveled by boat to the impoverished coastal strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade.
“This is a real Palestinian experience of being between the devil and the deep blue sea,” Booth told AFP. Booth asked over the weekend for authorization to leave Gaza through the Erez crossing with Israel. She was also prevented from crossing into Egypt through the Rafah crossing.
“Her request presented at the end of last week was rejected because anyone who does not enter officially cannot leave officially,” said Gil Kari, spokesman for the Israeli military office in charge of liaison with Gaza. Israel controls air and sea access to Gaza, where it imposed a crippling blockade after the Islamist Hamas movement seized power in the territory in June 2007.
“I’d actually like to say ‘thank you very much’ to the Israeli authorities at Erez for giving me this fantastic chance to feel just exactly what it is like to be inside what is effectively the world’s largest internment camp, where individuals who should have the right to travel under international law are withheld in a 40-kilometer by 10-kilometer camp,” Booth told the BBC.
Booth’s brother-in-law Tony Blair is currently on a weeklong visit to Israel in his capacity as representative of the Middle East peace Quartet, which comprises the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.
Meanwhile, Palestinian factions strongly rejected the proposal of deploying Arab or multi-national troops in the Gaza Strip. Ayman Al-Shishniya, a prominent leader at the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), said in press statements yesterday that the PRC rejects the idea of deploying Arab or foreign troops, asserting that any Arab troops should be sent to the Palestinian territories to liberate Jerusalem only.
“All indications refer to the fact that bringing such forces is against Palestinian people’s interests,” said Shishniya. The proposal had been floated at the Palestinian negotiations in Egypt as a step toward unifying the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
— With input from agencies
