CWN - The blockade of the Gaza Strip, in force since 2007, has made the region a “factory of desperate people” and “extremists ready for anything,” according to the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Patriarch Fouad Twal told the Fides news agency that a truce “will not help if the conditions in Gaza remain those of a desperate land under siege, where only fear and frustration that feed hatred can grow.”
“If you put an end to this siege, if you open up the streets and allow freedom of movement of people and goods, if you allow free fishing in the sea in front of Gaza, then everything will be able to move on the surface and no one will need to dig underground tunnels to pass,” he added.
The death of so many civilians in the Gaza-Israel conflict, he said, suggests that Hamas, which began to govern Gaza in 2007, “did not think of building underground shelters for the people.”
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