Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa called Sunday for Israel's four-year siege on the Gaza Strip to be broken as he made a landmark visit to the impoverished Palestinian enclave. The visit, Moussa's first to Gaza as Arab League secretary general, comes as calls mount for the opening of Gaza's borders after Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish activists when they raided a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31. “This blockade, which we are all here to confront, must be broken and the position of the Arab League is clear,” Moussa said after being welcomed at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt by officials from many Palestinian factions. “Not only the Arabs, but the entire world should stand with the Palestinian people against the siege of Gaza and what is happening in the occupied territories, especially east Jerusalem,” he said, referring to Jewish settlement growth in the annexed Arab half of the city. It was the first time that Moussa visited the besieged coastal strip since he became the head of the 22-member pan-Arab organization in 2001. The 10-hour visit, announced shortly after the deadly flotilla raid, was aimed at “showing solidarity with the Palestinian people” in the face of the blockade and to urge greater efforts to reconcile deeply divided Palestinian factions, Moussa's aide Hisham Yussef said last week. Speaking to journalists at the crossing, Mussa reiterated calls for Hamas and Fatah to resolve their differences.
