PLO leader urges ending Israeli onslaught on Gaza

Hanan Ashrawi, member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), called Saturday for ending the Israeli military aggression on Gaza Strip and lifting the illegitimate blockade.
The senior Palestinian politician lambasted the criticisms leveled against Hamas Movement relating to the responsibility for the ordeal of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
"Hamas is an integral part of the Palestinian people and the Palestinian social texture," she said a press release here, calling for measures to prepare the ground for materializing the national unity of Palestine.
"To halt the Jewish settlement expansions in the occupied Palestinian territories, reopen the border crossings of Gaza and release all Palestinian prisoners remain to be the top prerequisites, inter alia, for the resumption of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks," Ashrawi stressed.
"It is the extremist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that is responsible for the serious deterioration of the situations in the occupied Palestine, particularly Gaza Strip," she pointed out.
She accused the Israeli government of planning relentlessly to eradicate the Palestinians, cripple their political system and deepen the separation of Gaza Strip from the rest of the homeland "with the ultimate objective being to nip in the bud the Palestinian national project that is to establish an independent sovereign state able to restore the rights of the Palestinian people.
"The PLO leadership is in contact with regional and international key players with a view to putting an end to the Israeli military onslaught on Gaza and stopping the bloodshed.
"These contacts has recently led to the adoption of an Arab-sponsored UN Security Council draft resolution condemning the Israeli aggression on Gaza," she added.
Ashrawi called on Egypt to host an urgent meeting by the leaders of the PLO, Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in order to restructure the PLO and crystalize a single national stand representative of the Palestinians as a whole.