UN peace envoy meets Hamas leaders in Gaza

UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nickolay Mladenov yesterday met with Hamas leaders in the Gaza Strip amidst international mediations to end the Great March of Return.

“Mladenov does not visit Gaza except when he is asked to help Israel to get out of a dilemma,” Palestinian expert in Israeli affairs Saleh Al-Naami told Quds Press. “International mediation is no longer a secret.”

Military coup that ousted Mohamed Morsi in Egypt- Cartoon [Latuff/MiddleEastMonitor]

Al-Naami insisted that the international movements did not aim just to de-escalate the situation in Gaza, but to make sure that these demonstrations do not spread to the West Bank or affect the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem.

According to Al-Naami, the Great March of Return “embarrassed” the Israeli occupation and it will “pay a high political, security and military prices if they continued.” Therefore, he expected, Israel “is doing its best to stop it.”

READ: Israel detained 501 Palestinian men, 95 children, 13 women in March

Hani Thwabta, member of preparatory committee for the Great March of Return in Gaza, said that the demonstrations will continue “peacefully” in spite of the Israeli violations.

Since the start of the demonstrations on 30 March, Israeli occupation forces have killed 32 unarmed protesters and wounded around 3,000 others.

The demonstrations, the organisers say, will continue until 15 May, the 70th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba – the day Israel declared independence after Zionist gangs drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinians out of their homes, committing scores of massacres.