GAZA CITY: Hundreds of Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and the West Bank city of Hebron yesterday held rallies calling for the release of prisoners in Israeli jails. The protests were staged ahead of Palestinian Prisoner Day today.
“Freedom for prisoners!” chanted the demonstrators as they marched in downtown Gaza City, many of them holding posters of their loved ones held in Israeli jails.
In the occupied West Bank cities of Bethlehem and Hebron, about 1,500 people gathered for a similar rallies demanding the release of Palestinians held in Israeli jails.
Palestinians will today mark Prisoner Day, during which demonstrations will be held across the occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip to call for the release of their compatriots held by Israel. Israel currently holds some 11,000 Palestinian prisoners.
Meanwhile, in another development, Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said Cairo would not deal with ultranationalist Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s Channel 2 television reported on Wednesday.
“We will work with any proposal by the Israeli government but not through the Israeli foreign minister,” Aboul Gheit said in an interview with Russia Today television, excerpts of which were aired on Channel 2.
Lieberman stirred controversy last year when he said Hosni Mubarak could “go to hell” if the Egyptian president did not want to visit Israel. He once suggested Egypt’s Aswan Dam might be bombed. “Of course, he will not visit Cairo as long as his positions remain unchanged,” Aboul Gheit said.
On his first day at the Foreign Ministry this month, Lieberman said the US-sponsored Annapolis declaration of 2007 on peace with the Palestinians was no longer valid. “A person has to think about the consequences of the signals he sends from his brain to his tongue during speech and there have been consequences for Egypt,” Aboul Gheit said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose extreme right-wing government took office late last month, will meet Mubarak in Egypt in the near future, his office said last week.
