Qatari emir visits Gaza - Polidicks

[QUOTE] [IMG]http://www.aljazeera.com/mritems/Images/2012/10/23/2012102354152366734_20.jpg[/IMG] [B]Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, the emir of Qatar, has arrived in the Gaza Strip to inaugurate a $254-million Qatari investment project to rebuild the impoverished and overcrowded coastal enclave. [/B] [B]The leader of the Gulf nation is the first head of state to visit Gaza since the imposition of a widespread international boycott of the Palestinian territory.[/B] [B]"This visit has great political significance,"[/B] said Hamas government spokesman Taher al-Nunu. Nicole Johnston reports from Gaza on the emir's visit [B]"He is the first Arab leader to break the political siege."[/B] The investment project seeks to [B]build 1,000 homes for poor families in the devastated Khan Younis area in the south of the Strip.[/B] [B]The 41km-long Gaza Strip, home to 1.6 million people, sustained major damage during a huge 22-day Israeli military operation in December 2008 and January 2009.[/B] Khan Younis has been particularly hard hit during the international blockade of Gaza, imposed since 2007, and during the half-decade before that. A 2011 EWASH report revealed that 90-95 per cent of Gaza's water is unsafe to drink. In a phone conversation on the eve of the visit, [B]Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas welcomed the emir's intentions to help the people of Gaza[/B], under an Israeli-led blockade since the Hamas takeover. A late-night statement from the office of Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi said his country welcomed the emir's visit to Gaza, which it said came as part of Egypt's effort "to break the siege on the people" of the territory. Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston, reporting from Gaza, said [B]Hamas leaders were making the most of the visit.[/B] [B]"I haven't seen Hamas officials looking quite so pleased with themselves since they managed to free more than 1,000 Palestinian political prisoners last year,"[/B] she said. "But this is a great coup for them. Hamas is saying that it really ends their political isolation - they've really been treated as 'a terrorist organisation', as a pariah government, since they took control in 2007, and now they finally have a world leader, a leader of an Arab country, visiting them. "So it is a coup for Hamas. What it isn't is good news for Fatah. The emir of Qatar is not going to Ramallah, he's not going to the West Bank, and so the Palestinian Authority has been very strong in trying to push the point that the Palestinian territories should be united, that it is one political entity, and that even though the emir is only visiting Gaza, that this [B]'national unity' - which is stuck for the moment - eventually has to happen for there to be any progress at all on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.[/B]" [B]Qatar has played a key role in the reconciliation process. Earlier this year, the emir brought together Abbas and Hamas' supreme leader in exile, Khaled Meshaal, to make a deal.[/B] Under the arrangement, Abbas was to lead an interim unity government to pave the way for new elections in the Palestinian territories. That deal is yet to be implemented. [/QUOTE] [URL="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/10/2012102353137370247.html"]aljazeera[/URL]

good to see someone doing something for these people. The "war on terror" blockade ln gaza is hurting the population more rather then hamaz. It has to be on of the biggest political stacks of bullshit since forever.

If Israel is blockading Gaza as best they can from all sides, how will Qatar get its resources in?

Egypt I guess.

I was under the impression they had a deal with Israel to keep that side blocked up too. Though with a new government in town, I can see that changing.