100 European lawmakers, governors, mayors visit West Bank refugee camps

Date: 12 / 04 / 2009  Time:  12:32
Bethlehem – Ma’an –

Some 100 European parliamentarians, mayors and governors arrived in the West Bank on Sunday under the auspices of a program that “twins” French cities with Palestinian refugee camps.

The leaders, who are primarily French, visited their counterparts on Sunday in the twinning project in Deheisha Refugee Camp in the West Bank city of Bethlehem. The delegation is led by Fernand Tuil, the head of the French twinning committee (Association des Villes Françaises Jumelées avec des Camps de Réfugiés Palestiniens).

The delegation is scheduled to visit several Palestinian refugee camps in the West Bank and Jerusalem to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, and demonstrate support for Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes from which they and their ancestors were expelled in 1948.

The delegation will also hold talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and other Palestinian politicians in order to receive updates about the situation in Palestine.

According to Tuil, the predominantly French delegation is the largest of its kind that has ever come to the Palestinian territories. He said the goal of the visit is to support the struggle of the Palestinian people for their national aims.

During their visit that began at noon in Deheisha Camp, the European officials met Ahmad Muheisin, head of the Palestinian side of the twinning committee, and Muhammad Al-Lahham, a Palestinian lawmaker, and attended a reception at Al-Fineiq Hall.

Another meeting is scheduled to be held in Aida Refugee Camp, also in Bethlehem, where the guests will meet Palestinian lawmaker Issa Qaraqi and other activists in the camp to discuss a potential pairing between Aida and the French city Nogent.

European figures including Swiss MP to participate in Italian aid convoy to Gaza

[ 12/04/2009 - 10:02 AM ]

BRUSSELS, (PIC)--

Swiss MP Joseph Zisyadis and other anti-siege European personalities declared their intention to participate in the "Hope" convoy traveling from Italy to the besieged Gaza Strip earlier next month to express their solidarity with the distressed Gaza people.

In a press statement, MP Zisyadis condemned the Israeli siege on Gaza as a shameful crime against humanity, calling for lifting it immediately.

He also urged the world's free people and human rights advocates to urgently act to end the suffering of the besieged Palestinians in Gaza.

For his part, Sameh Habib, the spokesman for the convoy's coordination committee, said that the convoy will be composed of about 100 trucks and ambulances loaded with medicines, clothing and needs for the handicapped and hundreds of orphans whose parents were killed during the last Israeli war on Gaza.

Habib invited journalists and media outlets to cover this important event and relay the real suffering of one and a half million Palestinians to the whole world.

Organizer of the convoy the European campaign to lift the siege is making concentrated efforts to send this magnificent convoy to Gaza in the context of its endeavors to break the Israeli siege on Gaza.

The European campaign said that the convoy would be composed of hundreds of trucks coming from different European cities to the Italian city of Milan and would be transported on a large cargo ship to the port of Alexandria in Egypt and then into Gaza.