Germany’s foreign minister has paid a rare visit to the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, calling on Israel to ease a blockade on the territory and urging Hamas to make sure no more rockets are fired into Israel.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier is the latest in a series of Western diplomats to tour Gaza since a 50-day war with Israel last summer. While international donors have pledged billions of dollars in aid, little reconstruction has taken place on the estimated 18,000 homes destroyed in the fighting.
Steinmeier says more efforts are needed to rebuild and to improve the economy. “This requires the opening of crossing points by Israel,” he says.
But he adds that it would be difficult to do this without an end to rocket fire.
After exiting the Gaza Strip, Steinmeier visits the Negev and meets families who suffered from the incessant rocket fire during the war.
— AP contributed
German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (2L) shakes hands with a man at a United Nations-run school in Gaza City, on June 1, 2015. (Mahmoud Hams/AFP)
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