The UN’s new Middle East peace envoy urges Palestinian factions to unite and Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, on his first visit to the territory.
“I strongly believe that it will hurt the cause of the Palestinian people if division, if the lack of unity, is not addressed as soon as possible,” Nickolay Mladenov, who was appointed in February, tells reporters in Gaza City.
“I hope that the United Nations will be able to support the efforts to strengthen this unity,” he says.
Gaza faces a humanitarian crisis months after a 50-day war between Israel and Hamas wrought devastation in the Strip, with the international community warning of further conflict without Palestinian reconciliation and a lifting of Israel’s blockade.
“We in the United Nations, along with our partners in the international community, have a responsibility to ensure that Gaza is not just being reconstructed… but that the blockade which stops access to construction materials, to movement of people, goods… is lifted,” Mladenov says.
— AFP
United Nations’ new Middle East peace envoy, Nickolay Mladenov leaves after a press conference on April 30, 2015 in Gaza city. (Photo credit: Mahmud Hams/AFP)
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