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GAZA CITY (AFP) – US Senator John Kerry made a rare visit to the war-ravaged Gaza Strip, but stressed this did not reflect a change of policy towards the territory’s Islamist rulers listed by Washington as a terror group.
His first stop in the impoverished Palestinian enclave was the American school left in ruins by the deadly 22-day Israeli offensive that ended on January 18.
Talking to a Palestinian lawyer amid the dust and rubble, Kerry defended Israel for responding to almost daily rocket attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups.
“Your political leadership needs to understand that any nation that has rockets coming into it over many years, threatening its citizens, is going to respond,” Kerry told Shar Habeel al-Zaim.
Kerry briefly toured Izzbet Abed Rabbo, a northern Gaza community ravaged by the Israeli offensive and held talks with UN officials in Gaza City.
His visit coincided with a similar trip by Democratic US representatives Brian Baird and Keith Ellison, who expressed dismay at the plight of the overpopulated coastal strip.
“The amount of physical destruction and the depth of human suffering here is staggering,” Baird said in a statement issued jointly with Ellison.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
