Former US president Jimmy Carter criticized Israel’s blockade during a trip to Gaza, while encouraging the territory’s Hamas rulers to accept international conditions for ending its boycott of the militant Islamic group.
During Carter’s visit on Tuesday, Hamas security found what appeared to be explosives buried in a sand dune next to his route. No one was hurt, and it was unclear if the former US president was being targeted.
Speaking at a graduation for students from UN-run schools in Gaza City, Carter criticized the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas took control, saying Gazans “are treated more like animals than human beings.”
PHOTO: AP
Carter’s one-day Gaza visit came at the end of a swing though Lebanon, Syria and Israel, during which he encouraged officials in all countries to move toward a negotiated end to the Middle East conflict.
Carter — who helped broker the historic peace treaty between Israel and Egypt — serves a unique, though unofficial, role in peacemaking efforts in the region.
Although traveling as a “private citizen” and not a representative of the US government, Carter said he would report to the administration of US President Barack Obama after returning to the US.
Carter has advocated talking to all parties in the conflict, even Hamas, which the US, the EU and Israel consider a terrorist organization.
Carter said one of his trip’s main goals was to persuade Hamas to accept the West’s three conditions for engaging the group: renouncing violence, recognizing Israel and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements — all of which Hamas has refused to do.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv after leaving Gaza, Carter said he was waiting for Hamas to determine what it could agree to.
“When they make their decision on the exact language, they’ll be back in touch with me, and I’ll relay that commitment to the government officials in my country,” he said.
While in Gaza, Carter met with civil leaders and toured areas damaged in Israel’s three-week offensive against Hamas, which ended on Jan. 18.
In other news, Israeli Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch apologized yesterday after being caught by TV cameras on Tuesday using a racial slur in addressing an Arab police officer.
Aharonovitch was seen and heard telling the officer, who had apologized for his uniform not being clean: “What do you mean dirty? You look like a real Araboosh,” a derogatory term for an Arab in Hebrew slang.
“This remark does not reflect my positions or world view and I apologize to anyone who was insulted,” he said in a statement.
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