UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres arrived Wednesday morning in the besieged Gaza Strip after he visited Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories as part of his first regional itinerary.
According to the Palestinian Information Center (PIC) in Gaza Guterres and his entourage were allowed by Israel into Gaza through the Beit Hanoun (Erez) border crossing.
Meanwhile families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails have been rallying since the morning near the Beit Hanoun crossing in protest at Guterres’s refusal to meet with them upon his arrival in Gaza.
The UN chief had held several meetings with officials from the Palestinian Authority and Israel after he arrived last Sunday in the occupied territories coming from Kuwait.
Guterres who refused to meet with relatives of Palestinian prisoners met last Monday with families of Israeli captives being held in Gaza and expressed his sympathy with them.
The Prisoner Committee in Gaza slammed Guterres for refusing to talk and listen to the families of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails and ignoring their suffering calling on him to reconsider his “inhumane position” especially since the occupied Palestinian people are “the true victims of Israel’s terrorism.”
According to the UNRWA the UN secretary-general will read today a statement in one of its schools in Beit Lahia city north of Gaza before leaving soon on the same day.
