Fayyad to ask Rice for guarantees that Gaza offensive won’t happen again

By Xinhua

Ramallah : Acting Palestinian Premier Salam Fayyad will ask visiting U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to give guarantees that Israeli offensive into Gaza will not happen again, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.


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Rice started a Middle East tour on Tuesday and is scheduled to visit Ramallah in the afternoon to meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Premier Fayyad before heading for Jerusalem for talks with Israeli officials.

“The main issue in the talks here will be the ongoing Israeli attacks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank and the need for a U.S. intervention to stop the aggression and secure they will not happen again,” said Riyadh al-Maliki, information minister and Palestinian government spokesman.

Abbas announced halting the U.S.-sponsored peace talks between the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and Israel in the wake of a series of Israeli attacks since Wednesday in the Gaza Strip, which left more than 120 Palestinians killed and is the worst violence in years.

Rice has said that her visit aims at saving the peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis which were resumed at the U.S.-hosted Annapolis conference last November, local media reported.

According to al-Maliki, Fayyad will also demand international force “to protect the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank from the Israeli incursions, assassinations and destruction.”

Islamic Hamas movement seized control of Gaza Strip by force last June after ousting pro-Abbas security forces, which caused an Israeli closure on the coastal Strip.

Fayyad will also call for the reopening of crossings into Gaza and the easing of movement of people throughout Rafah crossing point between Gaza and Egypt, al-Maliki said.

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