GAZA CITY: Hundreds of Palestinian children participated in a rally in the Gaza Strip to protest the blockade imposed by Israel on the territory since 2007.
Hamas movement, which controls the Gaza Strip organized the demonstration in front of the United Nation Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)’s mission headquarters in Gaza, where the children chanted slogans against the Israeli embargo, and waved banners calling for an end to the blockade which has taken effect since Hamas movement forcibly took over the impoverished enclave. Sami Abu Zhori, a Hamas spokesman who participated in the rally, criticized the lack of Arab moves to break the embargo imposed on the costal enclave.
“It is true that Israel is to be blamed for the ongoing blockade, but it is unfortunately clear that the Arab intentions to break it are no longer existed,” Abu Zohri told reporters during the protest.
He added that his movement also rejects “the linkage of rebuilding the Gaza Strip to any other cases,” referring to Israel’s decision not to open the commercial crossing points into the enclave before Hamas releases Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier Hamas has been holding since June 2006.
Meanwhile, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has ordered the release of 40 Hamas members detained in the West Bank in a bid to encourage national unity, a security official said on Tuesday.
“President Abbas has decided to release 40 members of Hamas,” the official said.
At the end of last month the Palestinian Authority announced the release of 100 security detainees to try to bolster Egyptian-brokered unity talks with the Hamas movement, which seized the Gaza Strip in June 2007.
However, on the same day it said it had broken up a Hamas cell that was planning attacks on senior officials and public buildings in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
