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Solana visits camp in Gaza and calls for end to attacks
 EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana joined new Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas's call for an end to rocket attacks on Israel Wednesday as he toured a Hamas stronghold used as a launchpad by militants. On a visit to Gaza's impoverished Jabaliya camp after talks with Abbas, Solana said he was "moved" by the plight of poverty-stricken residents and said the new leadership would do its utmost to revive the peace process. Stumbling over rubble and viewing razed homes left by Israel's incursions into northern Gaza in a bid to stem rocket attacks last October, he described what he saw as "very dramatic" and later as "very moving" on his first visit to the camp."Rockets should not be fired. Point number one. But the amount of destruction is to my mind, now that you see it with your eyes ... disproportionate. Those responsible are not the ones who have been punished," he said. Two children and two teachers from a UN-run school that Solana visited, had been killed in the recent incursion. "You have opened a new page by the electoral process and you can be sure that the new president and the new structures are going to do the utmost to recuperate ... the process of peace," Solana told Palestinian reporters. Aides said he was on a fact-finding mission, to see the situation on the ground in Gaza to meet Palestinian MPs and civil society representatives. Posted by: Fred 2005-01-13 |
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