GAZA CITY - EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana toured the war-shattered Gaza Strip on Friday, his first such trip since democratically elected Hamas seized power in June 2007.
"I came to Gaza to see by myself the situation and the destruction and to show the solidarity to the good people of Gaza who have suffered so much," he said at a news conference.
"I wanted to see with my eyes the level of destruction," he said of the devastation wrought by Israel's 22-day military offensive that killed more than 1,300 mainly civilian Palestinians.
He viewed the ruins of the American International School and the wasteland of Ezbet Abed Rabbo, where scores of Palestinians huddle in shanties erected on mounds of rubble that used to be their homes.
His visit came ahead of an international conference in Egypt on the rebuilding of Gaza. "I hope the meeting that will take place on Monday will be a good meeting with good consequences for people here," said Solana.
Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas's win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter’ siege had already existed before.
Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”
A group of international lawyers and human rights activists had also accused Israel of committing “genocide” through its crippling blockade of the Strip.
Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza's sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.
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