Captives’ relatives protested at French FM visit to Gaza

[ 20/01/2011 - 10:01 PM ]

GAZA, (PIC)-- Palestinian captives’ families in the Gaza Strip came out in protest, throwing eggs and in some cases, shoes, as the French Foreign Minister Michel Alliot-Marie and her entourage visited the besieged region on Friday morning.

Dozens of families who have their loved ones imprisoned unlawfully in Israeli prisons, expressed their anger and dismay at statements attributed to her openly supporting Gilad Shalit's campaign.

Alliot-Marie's comments came during a meeting on Thursday afternoon where she is reported to have called on the European Union to condemn Hamas for the continued imprisonment of Gilad Shalit, which she described as a "war crime". Sources report that she was misquoted by the Israeli Arabic-language radio.



Protestors held "Get out of Gaza" signs and tried to block the convoy as it travelled through the Strip.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri considered remarks the French FM was alleged to have made during her meeting with Shalit’s family said that the FM’s remarks reflect bias to the Israeli occupation adding that Shalit was captured from the battlefield while thousands of Palestinians who are languishing in occupation jails have been kidnapped from the midst of their families.

Hamas slams Alliot-Marie for ignoring suffering of Palestinians in Israeli jails

[ 22/01/2011 - 08:17 AM ]

DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- The Hamas Movement strongly denounced French foreign minister Michele Alliot-Marie for describing, during a visit to the occupied Palestinian territories, the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit as a war crime and ignoring the suffering of thousands of Palestinians who were kidnapped from their homes.

In a press release on Friday, Hamas stated that Shalit was taken prisoner as he was aboard an Israeli tank besieging and pointing its gun at Gaza people.

Hamas underscored that Alliot-Marie's remarks were a diplomatic discourtesy from her side and reflected her blatant bias in favor of the Israeli occupation.

It added that the French minister affronted the Palestinian people and their prisoners in Israeli jails when it made such irresponsible remarks, and demanded the French government to apologize to the Palestinian people.

For its part, the Palestinian resistance committees said that Alliot-Marie's claims that the Palestinian resistance committed a war crime when it captured an Israeli soldier proved France's full support for the policies of the Israeli occupation in the region.

Spokesman for the committees Mohamed Al-Barim stated that Alliot-Marie knows well that Shalit was aboard an Israeli tank used to kill Palestinians east of Rafah area when he was captured by resistance fighters, stressing that the resistance has the right to take every Israeli assaulting the Palestinian people prisoner.

Spokesman Barim emphasized that the perpetrators of war crimes are the people who are occupying the Palestinian land, and committing massacres and ethnic cleansing against the Palestinians.

The spokesman demanded France, which intervened more than once to have Shalit released, to desist from statements showing loyalty to the Zionist project in the region and doing no justice to the Palestinian people who struggle for their freedom.

In a related incident, spokesman for Wa'ed society for detainees Abdullah Qandil told the Palestinian information center (PIC) that the families of Gazan prisoners in Israeli jails set up a sit-in tent near Beit Hanoun crossing, north of Gaza, in protest at the remarks made by Alliot-Marie who ignored the suffering of about 7,000 Palestinians detained in Israel's jails.

Spokesman Qandil added that some of the families under the insistence of Alliot-Marie on not meeting them to listen to their suffering got irritated and expressed their anger at her through intercepting her motorcade.


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