Carter visits Gaza, criticizes blockade

Agence France-Presse

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"Tragically, the international community too often ignores the cries for help and the citizens of Palestine are treated more like animals than like human beings," he said as he toured the war-torn, blockaded Gaza Strip.

Meeting with Haniya

"The starving of 1.5 million human beings of the necessities of life - never before in history has a large community like this been savaged by bombs and missiles and then denied the means to repair itself," Carter said at a U.N. school graduation ceremony in Gaza City. He was referring to the blockade that Israel and Egypt have maintained on Gaza since June 2007 when Hamas, a group pledged to the destruction of Israel, seized power in the territory.

As Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to press yesterday, Carter was due to meet Ismail Haniya, prime minister of the Islamist Hamas movement that runs the territory and which is considered a terrorist organization by Israel and the West. He is expected to pass on a letter from the parents of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier that Gaza militants including Hamas seized in a cross-border raid almost three years ago, and who remains in captivity.

The U.S. and Europe "must try to do all that is necessary to convince Israel and Egypt to allow basic goods into Gaza," he said. "At same time, there must be no more rockets" from Gaza into Israel. "Palestinian statehood cannot come at the expense of Israel's security, just as Israel's security cannot come at the expense of Palestinian statehood." Earlier Carter, who brokered the historic 1979 peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, called for a halt to all violence around the territory .