Former Health Minister invites Prince William to visit Gaza

A former Palestinian Minister of Health in the Gaza Strip has sent an open invitation to Britain’s Prince William to visit the besieged territory during his forthcoming tour of the region. Dr Basem Naim is now the head of the Council on International Relations; he called on the Duke of Cambridge to go to Gaza on Monday.

“Why do not you visit Gaza?” Naim asked the prince on Facebook. “Former British Prime Minister David Cameron described it as a ‘prison camp’.”

The visit of William, who is second in line to the British throne, is being made at the request of the Conservative government in Westminster. British policy until now has been to avoid official royal visits until the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved.

“Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, will visit occupied Palestine next Monday,” wrote Naim, “and it will certainly be an important visit to let [him] see the humanitarian tragedy caused by the Israeli siege supported by [the United] Kingdom.”

Read: Israel anger as UK Prince set to visit ‘occupied’ East Jerusalem

The Duke will be the first member of Britain’s royal family to pay an official visit to Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories since the withdrawal of the British Mandate authorities from Palestine in 1948.

Although she died in London in 1969, his great-grandmother’s remains were transferred in 1988 from St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle to the Mount of Olives in occupied Jerusalem. Princess Alice of Battenberg was recognised as one who is “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Holocaust Memorial, Yad Vashem, for sheltering Jewish refugees during World War Two.