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Labour Party Minister for Trade and Development, Joe Costello Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

Costello to meet refugees during fact-finding visit to Gaza

He described this as a time of hope but also increasing difficulty for ordinary Palestinians.

MINISTER JOE COSTELLO is to make a fact-finding visit to Gaza tomorrow, during what he described as a “time of increasing difficulty” for ordinary Palestinians.

While there, the Minister for Trade and Development will look at the situation on the ground and the humanitarian impact of the Israeli blockade on the people of Gaza.

The Minister said:

This is a time of cautious hope in the Middle East Peace Process, but it is also a time of increasing difficulty for many ordinary Palestinians, especially the people of Gaza. Tomorrow, I will meet Palestinian refugees in Gaza to hear their stories and hopes for the future.

Costello will meet with relief agencies who are working to provide emergency food supplies to Palestinian refugees in Gaza, including the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

He will also visit the Nuseirat Distribution Centre, to see the impact of Ireland’s support to UNRWA, and will visit the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.

Today, the Minister held meetings in Ramallah with Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah, Prisons Minister, Issa Qaraqe’, the chief Palestinian negotiator Dr Saeb Erekat and the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Riyad al-Maliki.

Read: Following talks, Israel and Palestine agree to talks>

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    Mute Abdul Ahmed
    Favourite Abdul Ahmed
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    Dec 16th 2014, 9:20 PM

    Regarding the Pakistani massacre:
    I find it despicable that on a day 132 innocent children were murdered in their school there are self-righteous people that have yet to find compassion for the dead and their families.

    Instead they are on their high horse commenting on geopolitics and Pakistan as a failed state instead of simply mourning the loss of a large number of children. As an Irish-Pakistani I have been one of the strongest critics of Pakistan’s many failings, but have some decorum and sense of decency. White and western lives are not anymore valuable than innocents dying anywhere else. The kids were not responsible for the state’s policies or the country’s historic mistakes. Just as it is incendiary to blame many atrocious US policies for innocent lives lost in anti-American terror attacks, gratuitous comments by people who minimize the loss of innocents is condemnable.

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    Mute Setrakian
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    Dec 16th 2014, 11:48 PM

    I could not possibly agree more with you Abdul. Very well said.

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    Mute Sean ORegan
    Favourite Sean ORegan
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    Dec 17th 2014, 12:17 AM

    I believe I just heard Vincent Browne saying that the killing of children by the US and the UK in Afghanistan is both equivalent to and justification for what the Taliban did today. Good to be reminded from time to time why I will not watch his show. And I only saw that bit by accident.

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