Loading ...Washington Meeting on Gaza an Exploitation of a Humanitarian Issue – Official
SOURCE: WAFA
WASHINGTON, March 14, 2018 (WAFA) – The Washington meeting on Gaza was an attempt to exploit the humanitarian situation in the besieged coastal strip for political ends, Palestinian’s head of delegation to the United States, Husam Zomlot, said on Tuesday.
He told heads and representatives of civil society organizations in Washington that the Palestinians boycotted the meeting because they felt it was called for by the US administration to return to the region’s politics through the humanitarian door.
He said the US has lost its credibility and role as mediator after it recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and decided to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, which prompted the Palestinian Authority to cut all contacts with the US administration.
“We will not be fooled by any maneuvering in order to return through the door of humanitarian crisis in Gaza and it will not change the position of the Palestinian leadership,” he said.
The Washington delegation entrusted with coming up with a peace solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict called for the meeting in order to find solutions for the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Israel and several other countries, including Arab, attended the meeting, which was boycotted by the Palestinians.
Zomlot said that US cuts aid designated to the Palestinians and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which takes care of two thirds of the Gaza population, “and then it says it wants to find a solution to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which it has contributed to worsening it.”
He said the crisis is Gaza was due to the prolonged Israeli siege in the first place and Hamas control as a de facto power and which refuses to allow the Palestinian government to take control in Gaza.
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