Hamas to rebuild Gaza homes with mud bricks by Adel Zaanoun MAY 9,09
GAZA CITY (AFP) – The Hamas-run government in the fenced-off Gaza Strip said on Saturday that it will use mud bricks to rebuild houses destroyed during a massive Israeli offensive at the turn of the year.In the next few days we will start using mud to rebuild the houses that the (Israeli) occupation destroyed in Gaza,Hamas deputy prime minister Ziad al-Zaza told AFP.This will be done as an option for those owners of destroyed houses who want it,he added. This is a serious operation by the government to break the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.Israeli forces destroyed thousands of homes during a massive three-week offensive launched in late December aimed at halting rocket attacks from the territory, which has been ruled by the Islamist Hamas movement since June 2007.Since Hamas took power Israel has sealed off the narrow coastal strip and its 1.4 million Palestinian residents from all but basic humanitarian aid and has allowed in virtually no construction materials, saying they might be used for making explosives and weapons.Small quantities of concrete and steel have nevertheless been brought in through a network of smuggling tunnels between Gaza and Egypt, which Israeli warplanes repeatedly bombed both during and after the deadly war.Zaza said the government would use blueprints approved by local municipalities and the union of Gaza engineers for three-storey houses that it said would last for decades.The programme will begin with the building of a three-storey model home on 250 square metres (around 2,700 square feet) of land, he added.The cost of rebuilding would be borne by the government and by Arab and local aid groups, Zaza said, adding that the project would provide employment for construction workers and allow some factories to reopen.In recent days Gaza residents have started building mud brick houses on their own in some of the hardest-hit areas of the territory in Gaza City and the southern towns of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
In Rafah Jihad al-Shaer, 36, recently completed an 80 square-metre (860 square-foot) mud brick house and has moved in with his wife and six children, the youngest of which was born last week.I got tired of waiting, because I need to live in a house with my family,he said.The new dwelling has no electricity or running water, but Shaer says it only cost him 3,000 dollars to build. He estimates he would have spent 25,000 dollars if he had used cement.Nearby another man, Ismail, who declined to give his last name, has also built a small house out of mud.It looked like it was going to be a long wait,the 29-year-old said.Maybe it is only a temporary solution.
But not everyone is happy about the plan.
Mohammed al-Samuni, the member of a large clan whose neighbourhood on the edge of Gaza City was flattened during the offensive, said he would prefer to wait for cement.
We want to rebuild our houses the way they were before, he said.This is our natural right.According to official Palestinian statistics around 4,100 dwelling places were destroyed during the offensive as well as 48 government offices and buildings, 31 police stations and 20 mosques. International donors pledged 4.5 billion dollars in aid at a reconstruction conference in Egypt in March but little has made its way to Gaza amid the continuing blockade and bitter Palestinian political divisions. More than 1,400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the Gaza offensive, which came to an end on January 18 when Israel and Hamas each declared unilateral ceasefires.
Obama to make key Muslim address from Egypt by Stephen Collinson - Sat May 9, 12:25 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama will make his long-awaited address to Muslims in Egypt on June 4, accelerating his bid to mend the US image in the Islamic world from an epicenter of Arab civilization.The speech, fulfilling an Obama campaign promise, will focus on how Americans and Muslims abroad can secure the safety and security of their children in a more hopeful future, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs said.The trip, certain to unfold amid a massive security operation, will come as Obama tries to ignite stalled Middle East peace efforts, and will represent his most significant attempt yet to engage the Muslim world.Arabs and Muslim believers across the world have been alienated by the war in Iraq, abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail outside Baghdad and the Guantanamo Bay war on terror camp which Obama has ordered closed.Gibbs said that the exact venue for the speech had yet to be decided, but most speculation will center on Cairo, the capital of Egypt, the most populous nation in the Arab world.On June 4, the president will give a speech in Egypt. The speech will be about America's relations with the Muslim world,Gibbs said.He added that there were no plans for Obama to make any further stops in the Middle East during the visit, which will precede a trip to France and Germany focusing on World War II commemorations.The president promised during his 2008 election campaign to make a speech at a major Islamic forum within the first 100 days of his administration which ended last week, but the timetable slipped for logistical reasons.He did however make a speech in the Turkish parliament last month, during his first presidential visit to a Muslim-majority nation, declaring the United States was not at war with Islam, and noting his own partly Muslim heritage.As Obama tries to kick start Middle East peacemaking, the visit will follow trips to Washington by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas.Obama is also trying to coax sworn US foe Iran to the negotiating table in a bid to halt the Islamic state's nuclear program.Gibbs defended Obama from claims that by choosing Egypt, where the State Department says there are significant restrictions on the political process and freedom of expression the US president was watering down US support for democracy promotion abroad.
It is a country that in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world,Gibbs said. I think it will be a terrific opportunity for the president to address and discuss our relationship with the Muslim world.Obama last month reached out to Muslims from the well of the Turkish parliament.You cannot put out fire with flames,Obama said, arguing that brute force alone could not thwart extremism as he sent a flurry of coded messages throughout the Middle East.Obama, who spent part of his childhood in Indonesia, and is the son of a Kenyan father of Muslim heritage, drew on his own biography as he sought to forge new trust with the Islamic world.The president said US ties with Islam could not be simply defined by opposition to terrorism, decades into a US struggle with extremism that was sharpened by the September 11 attacks in 2001.The United States has been enriched by Muslim Americans. Many other Americans have Muslims in their family, or have lived in a Muslim-majority country -- I know, because I am one of them.Within days of taking office in January, Obama launched his effort to engage the Muslim world by granting an interview with the Al-Arabiya television network.Obama has created a combination of curiosity and excitement throughout the Middle East, said Jon Alterman, the director of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here. He embodies change in a region where many people are terribly thirsty for political change.The White House also said Friday that Obama will visit the German city of Dresden and the former Nazi death camp at Buchenwald in June 5, before traveling onto D-Day commemorations in France. Obama's great-uncle, Charlie Payne, took part in the liberation of part of the Buchenwald camp in 1945 with the US Army, but Gibbs said it was unclear whether he would travel with the president. Payne was a private in the 89th Infantry Division during World War II when he took part in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a forced-labor camp that was part of Buchenwald.
Pope disappoints Muslim leaders with Jordan address by Kamal Taha – Sat May 9, 12:09 pm ET
AMMAN (AFP) – Pope Benedict XVI on Saturday urged inter-faith reconciliation on the second day of a Holy Land tour but disappointed Muslim clerics by failing to offer a new apology for remarks seen as targeting Islam.The pontiff in a keynote address to Muslim leaders in Amman's huge Al-Hussein Mosque bemoaned ideological manipulation of religion and urged Muslims and Christians to unite as worshippers of God.Certainly, the contradiction of tensions and divisions between the followers of different religious traditions, sadly, cannot be denied,the leader of the world's 1.1 billion Catholics told his audience.However, is it not also the case that often it is the ideological manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends, that is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society? Some clerics expressed disappointment however that the pontiff in his wide-ranging speech had made no new apology for a 2006 address in which he quoted a medieval Christian emperor who criticised some teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as evil and inhuman.The pontiff apologised at the time for the unfortunate misunderstanding but ahead of his visit to Jordan the kingdom's main opposition party, the Islamic Action Front, said the pope was not welcome unless he again apologised.What the pope said was not an apology,said Hammam Said, the overall leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood and University of Jordan professor.
Other Muslim leaders echoed his comments.We wanted him to clearly apologise, Sheikh Yusef Abu Hussein, mufti of the southern city of Karak, told AFP after the pope's address.But Prince Ghazi bin Mohammed, Jordanian King Abdullah II's advisor on religious affairs who hosted the pontiff during his visit to the mosque, was more conciliatory.I would like to thank you for expressing regret over the lecture in 2006, which hurt the feelings of Muslims,Ghazi told the pope.We realise that the visit (to Jordan) comes as a goodwill gesture and a sign of mutual respect between Muslims and Christians.Pope Benedict did not remove his shoes during the keynote address at the mosque, as is customary in Muslim shrines, but a spokesman insisted he had not been asked to do so as he used a special walkway.Benedict XVI was ready to take them off but his escorts led him down a special walkway and did not ask him to do so, Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said.On his arrival in Amman on Friday at the start of his eight-day Holy Land tour that will also take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories, Benedict underlined his deep respect for Islam.Pressing the theme of reconciliation during a visit earlier on Saturday to Mount Nebo, where Biblical tradition says God showed Moses the Promised Land, Benedict urged Christians and Jews to bridge their divides.The ancient tradition of pilgrimage to the holy places also reminds us of the inseparable bond between the Church and the Jewish people,Benedict said.May our encounter today inspire in us a ... desire to overcome all obstacles to the reconciliation of Christians and Jews,the pontiff added on the slopes of the windswept mountain, 40 kilometres (24 miles) southwest of Amman.And as he celebrated Vespers on Saturday in the Melkite Greek Catholic cathedral in Amman, Benedict paid tribute to the contribution of the Eastern churches to the Christian faith.Despite the schism that split Roman Catholics from the Greek Orthodox and other Eastern churches, he hailed moments of reconciliation ... and times of rich cultural revival, to which Eastern Christians have contributed so greatly.On Monday, the pope will begin the second stage of his trip by flying to Israel where he is also expected again to focus on building bridges between the faiths. Israel and the Vatican have clashed in recent months over the papal decision to lift the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson of Britain, and over moves to beatify Pope Pius XII.Israel reviles Pius for what it perceives as his passive stance during the Holocaust in World War II.
Israel says FM invited to Egypt Sat May 9, 11:19 am ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has been invited to visit Egypt, a senior ministry official said on Saturday drawing a stiff denial from Cairo.Mr Lieberman was invited to visit Egypt as minister of foreign affairs, but the date of this visit has not yet been fixed,Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon told Israeli public radio.Israel and Egypt have common interests, but Mr Lieberman has a lot of invitations on his agenda, including from Moscow, London, Washington, Latin America and Africa,he said.But Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Hossam Zaki denied in a statement that Cairo had issued any invitation to the firebrand Lieberman.The Egyptian position on this has not changed, he said, expressing his surprise at such unfounded information.In April, the Egyptian foreign ministry had also denied Israeli claims that Lieberman had received an invitation from Egypt's intelligence chief Omar Suleiman to visit Cairo.And Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said last month that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will visit Cairo in May without Lieberman.Some say... that he will bring his foreign minister with him. The Israeli prime minister is coming alone. His cabinet chief will come with him. He will not bring any other minister with him, Mubarak said.Relations between Egypt and Israel have deteriorated since Lieberman, who last year said Mubarak could go to hell if he continued to refuse to visit Israel, was named foreign minister.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit has said he would not shake Lieberman's hand.Netanyahu is expected in Egypt on Monday on his first official visit abroad since taking office on March 31.Cairo has played a key role as mediator in the Jewish state's dealings with Palestinian militant groups, notably the Islamist Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.But relations have become more difficult since Netanyahu took power at the head of a mainly right-wing government that has not yet endorsed the idea of a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians.
Pope calls for Christian-Muslim harmony By Philip Pullella and Tom Heneghan – Sat May 9, 8:17 am ET
AMMAN (Reuters) – Pope Benedict visited a mosque on Saturday in another attempt to mend fences with Islam after a 2006 speech caused offence, and urged Christians and Muslims to jointly defend religion from political manipulation.Speaking at the modern King Hussein bin Talal Mosque in Amman, he struck a note of harmony and shared purpose between the world's two largest religions, continuing a main theme of his trip to the Middle East.I firmly believe Christians and Muslims can embrace (the task of cooperation) particularly through our respective contributions to learning and scholarship, and public service,he told Islamic leaders and diplomats at the mosque.
Addressing the pope, Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, reminded the pope of the hurt Muslims around the world felt in 2006 after Benedict quoted a Byzantine emperor who said Islam was irrational and violent.Ghazi, a cousin of Jordanian King Abdullah, told the gathering the Muslim world appreciated the Vatican's clarification and accepted that the pope was not expressing his own opinion at the time but making an historical citation.Ghazi, a leading figure in the Common Word group of Muslim scholars promoting dialogue with Christians, praised the pope for his friendly gestures and kindly actions toward Muslims since the 2006 speech prompted outrage.
Vatican spokesman Father Federico Lombardi said the pope did not remove his shoes or pray while in the mosque, as he did during his first visit to a mosque in Turkey in 2006, but rather paused for a respectful moment of reflection.Lombardi said the pope did not remove his shoes as he was being shown around the mosque as his hosts did not ask him to.Catholic conservatives criticized the pope in 2006 after he prayed toward Mecca with the Imam of a mosque in Istanbul.
AVOID MANIPULATION
In one section of his address at the mosque, Benedict referred to God as merciful and compassionate,using the formula Muslims use when speaking of God.Benedict said while no-one could deny a history of tensions and divisions, Christians and Muslims should prevent the manipulation of religion, sometimes for political ends.That is the real catalyst for tension and division, and at times even violence in society.
His overtures on this trip have not pleased all Muslims.
Sheikh Hamza Mansour, a leading Islamist scholar and politician, told Reuters the pope had not sent any message to Muslims that expresses his respect for Islam or its religious symbols starting with the Prophet.Common Word spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said the pope's speech would not erase the Regensburg speech from popular memory in the Muslim world but noted with approval that Benedict stressed in his speech that Muslims and Christians worshipped the same God.That's a long way from the Regensburg speech,he said.Earlier on Saturday, the pope retraced the steps of Moses, visiting Mount Nebo where the Bible says the ancient prophet glimpsed the Promised Land before dying.Like Moses, we too have been called by name, invited to undertake a daily exodus from sin and slavery toward life and freedom,he said in the sixth-century Moses Memorial Church. His example reminds us that we too are part of the ageless pilgrimage of God's people through history.He also struck a note of Christian-Muslim understanding in Madaba, a town near Mount Nebo, when he blessed the cornerstone of a new Catholic university being built there with state help. Benedict will stay in Jordan until Monday, when he moves on to Israel to start the most delicate part of his trip.
Europe unconvinced as Israeli FM ends maiden trip by Amelie Bottollier-Depois – Fri May 8, 11:39 am ET
BRUSSELS (AFP) – Israel's outspoken Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman failed to convince Europe of his peacemaking credentials as he returned home Friday from his first foreign tour.During visits to France, the Czech Republic and Germany, there were no press conferences or meetings with heads of government. Only in Italy did Lieberman, a sceptic on peace with the Palestinians, speak in public.In a statement released Friday, Germany urged Lieberman not to back away from the peace process with the Palestinians.During talks with Lieberman late Thursday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Israel must pursue a two-state solution in the interest of regional security and stability, his ministry said in a statement.
Steinmeier underlined the government's expectation that the new Israeli government maintain its commitment to results produced in previous (peace) talks and the goal of a two-state solution,it said, adding that Germany would support Israel in the process.
In Italy, whose right-wing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi welcomed him in person, Lieberman received five-star treatment. There he appealed for patience while Israel's new government hammers out a diplomatic strategy.Lieberman had sparked unease among Europeans by saying ahead of his trip that the new cabinet of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not bound by the previous government's decision in 2007 to revive peace talks with the Palestinians.The leader of Yisrael Beitenu (Israel is Our Home) entered Netanyahu's coalition government after elections which saw his party come in third place, campaigning on a hardline agenda against Israel's Arab minority.
Netanyahu has so far refused to publicly endorse the idea of a Palestinian state, a bedrock principle of international plans to resolve the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict.After meeting Lieberman on Tuesday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner insisted he regarded the creation of a Palestinian state as central to any chance of peace.Bernard Kouchner recapitulated France's expectations, in particular concerning the creation of a viable Palestinian state coexisting in peace and security with Israel, a foreign ministry statement said.He underlined the urgent need to restart negotiations with this objective in mind.From there, Lieberman went on to Prague and a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana.It has been a meeting in which not much has been advanced as you would imagine (as) they are in a process of review... let us see what is the revision they present,he said.They know very well what our policy is, which is a policy encapsulated in the two states solution,he added.EU external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner warned last month that a planned upgrade of bilateral relations could not come about until the Israeli government commits to the peace talks with the Palestinians.
Only Italy has opposed that call.
What they call the upgrading between Europe and Israel must not stop because that way Europe can play a major role in the Middle East peace process, Italy's Foreign Minister Franco Frattini told a joint news conference with Lieberman who also called for stronger ties with the EU. The Israeli prime minister has said all attempts at finding peace between Israel and the Palestinians had failed since the 1993 Oslo accords. Lieberman did not signal any change from that view. There was some disagreement but it was the first contact ... We hope that he will take account of what we have been saying and that the Americans are going to say the same thing," said one European diplomat.
Pope heads to Mideast on pilgrimage of peace Fri May 8, 4:38 am ET
ROME – Pope Benedict XVI has set off for the Middle East on a self-proclaimed pilgrimage of peace.Benedict's plane took off from Rome's Leonardo da Vinci airport at about 9:50 a.m. (0750 GMT) Friday, bound for Jordan. It is the first stop of a weeklong trip that will also take him to Israel and the Palestinian territories.The Jordan stop is Benedict's first visit as pope to an Arab country and he will meet with Muslim religious leaders in Amman.Jordan's powerful Muslim Brotherhood has demanded that Benedict apologize for his September 2006 speech in which he linked the Prophet Muhammad to violence.The pope has already said he was deeply sorry over the reaction to his speech and that the passage he quoted did not reflect his own opinion.
Jordan King: Delaying Mideast peace dangerous Thu May 7, 2:14 pm ET
AMMAN (AFP) – Jordan's King Abdullah II warned on Thursday that delaying Palestinian-Israeli peace talks puts the entire Middle East in danger, the palace said in a statement.The region is going through a critical stage, and any delay in peace negotiations puts the region as well as strategic interests for everybody in danger, the king told visiting US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.Israel's hawkish Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has so far failed to publicly endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, a principle strongly backed by the White House.The Palestinians are demanding that Netanyahu back a two-state solution -- to which Israel committed itself under the roadmap peace plan launched by the international community in 2003 --before the two sides resume talks.King Abdullah urged US President Barack Obama last month in Washington to back Palestinian statehood in words as well as deeds, and pressed Israel to choose between integration or isolation in the Middle East.The kingdom, a key US ally, signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994.The palace said Pelosi is on a regional tour but gave no further details.
Israel FM to run strategic dialogue with US: sources Thu May 7, 12:33 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's ultra-nationalist Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman will be put in charge of strategic dialogue with the United States, sources in the prime minister's office said on Thursday.Lieberman, who has stirred controversy over his hardline stance towards Arab-Israelis, will be given the key job -- which is separate from the foreign ministry portfolio -- on Sunday, the sources said.The United States and Israel have been engaged since 1999 in a strategic dialogue which notably covers the three billion dollars Washington sends annually in aid to its staunch ally.Since he was sworn in on March 31, Lieberman caused unease among the international community by saying Israel was not bound by November 2007 agreement at a US conference to relaunch the peace process with the Palestinians.
Israel's Holocaust centre says Vatican ties might improve Thu May 7, 12:28 pm ET
JERUSALEM (AFP) – Israel's Holocaust remembrance authority on Thursday raised the possibility that its ties with the Vatican would improve significantly if new evidence emerges that controversial Nazi-era Pope Pius XII helped Jews.The authority's chairman Avner Shalev said that the Vatican recently gave researchers at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial centre evidence that senior clerics ordered a convent outside Rome to shelter Jews during World War II.The Vatican says the wartime pope ordered monasteries to shelter Jews persecuted by the Nazis.If one or two more documents like this come to light, it would certainly result in a significant improvement in our relations with the Vatican, Shalev told a news conference ahead of Pope Benedict XVI's arrival on Monday.We are sure that they are looking for more evidence,Shalev said.Pope Benedict XXVI is scheduled to visit the Yad Vashem memorial within hours of his arrival, but will shun the section where a caption below a picture of Pius says the wartime pope failed to speak out against the Holocaust.
Shalev says he was pleasantly surprised by the good atmosphere surrounding preparations for the pope's May 11-15 visit.Although some officials say Jewish-Vatican relations have never been better, Israelis are ambivalent about the German pope who was a member of the Hitler Youth and had stirred controversy by backing beatification of Pius XII and lifting the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying British bishop.
Israel-Palestinian talks must address core issues: Blair By Adam Entous – Thu May 7, 9:59 am ET
BETHLEHEM, West Bank (Reuters) – Renewed peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians must tackle core issues including Jerusalem, Middle East envoy Tony Blair said, raising the specter of a clash with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Unless you're dealing with the core issues, then the negotiation, I don't know what it's about, Blair, envoy for the Quartet of Middle East mediators, the United States, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia, told Reuters on Thursday. It will be the substance that matters.Blair's remarks were the strongest signal yet by the Quartet that it would pressure Netanyahu to resume negotiations on final-status issues -- the borders of a Palestinian state as well as the fate of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees.Netanyahu's main right-wing and ultra-Orthodox coalition partners oppose negotiations on the core issues, underscoring the difficult balancing act he faces in trying to satisfy Western demands for substantive peace moves without triggering an internal backlash that could destabilize his government.Netanyahu, who met Blair on Wednesday, has been vague in public about the scope of any future peace talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose Western-backed government holds sway in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.This week, Netanyahu said he was ready immediately to begin negotiations on economic, security and political issues.But he has so far refused to endorse a two-state solution, or to spell out whether political negotiations would include the core issues.Netanyahu's office declined to comment on Blair's remarks, but a senior official said the Palestinians can bring to the table their concerns and we will bring to the table our concerns" without preconditions.
Other senior Israeli officials said Netanyahu was deeply skeptical about moving to talks on core issues any time soon.
RIGHT-WING BACKLASH
Netanyahu's right-wing Likud party criticized then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's decision to restart talks on core issues at a peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland in November 2007.The talks bogged down last year and broke off after Israel went to war in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip in late December.U.S. President Barack Obama has made clear advancing Palestinian statehood would be a priority for his administration, but he has yet to say how he intends to do so.Western diplomats said Netanyahu's right-leaning coalition was more stable than Olmert's centrist government, giving the new prime minister some room to maneuver.But the same right-wing parties which bogged down Olmert's peace talks and weakened him politically have gained ground and now hold more powerful positions in Netanyahu's cabinet.Blair said the international community hoped to settle on the future course for the peace process following Netanyahu's meeting with Obama in Washington on May 18.Over the next few weeks we will see, I think, pretty clearly, what the shape of the plan going forward is going to be,the former British prime minister said.
Diplomats said the Quartet planned to meet mid-June.
After meeting Blair, Netanyahu named a ministerial committee on developing the Palestinian economy and improving their quality of life. His office said he would chair it himself. We want the development of the economy ... but it's not a substitute for statehood,Blair said on a tour of Bethlehem. A large part of Bethlehem is not developed,Blair said, owing to physical and legal restrictions imposed by Israel.His Palestinian hosts said the city, which Pope Benedict will visit during a May 8 to 15 pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was being slowly strangled by Israel's barrier in the West Bank, and pointed to a nearby Israel settlement where Blair saw construction going on.(Additional reporting by Douglas Hamilton, Editing by Samia Nakhoul)
