Iranian Lawmakers’ Gaza Visit Still on Agenda: MP
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Consultations with the Egyptian interests section in Tehran are still in progress to obtain visa for a delegation of Iranian lawmakers who plan to visit Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, a legislator said.
Hassan Kamran, a member of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, told the Tasnim News Agency on Monday that a six-member panel of Iranian legislators’ scheduled trip to Gaza has not been called off.
He said the MPs are awaiting an entry visa by Egypt, which controls Rafah border crossing, the only window to the outside world for the blockaded Gaza Strip.
After 10 days of contacts with Egypt’s mission in Tehran, we have not still received a clear response, Kamran added, noting that Egyptians refer to a pause in diplomatic activities in the wake the Eid al-Fitr holidays in the Arab country.
On the agenda of the six-member panel of Iranian legislators’ scheduled trip is visiting the bereaved families of victims of the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip, finding ways to dispatch humanitarian assistance to the war-torn enclave, and visiting Gaza’s war-hit neighborhoods such as Shejaia.
The lawmaker had announced earlier that the visit to Gaza is part of a plan to send a humanitarian aid convoy to the blockaded area, noting that the convoy would take the aid supplies provided by Iranian nation as well as Iran’s Red Crescent Society (IRCS).
Gaza Strip –the small enclave of 41 kilometers long with 1.8 million Muslim residents- has been under Israeli attacks since July 8 as the occupying regime has started a new wave of assaults on defenseless Palestinians following fiascos in 2005 and 2008 when the Israelis had to stop their aggression due to strong resistance of people in Gaza.
Death toll from 28 days of Israeli onslaught on Palestinians has exceeded 1,800 with more than 9,000 others reported injured.