Hamas chief slams Arab states over 'Gaza tragedy'

The exiled political chief of the Islamic fundamentalist Palestinian Hamas group on Sunday slammed Arab and Islamic states for keeping silent over Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip. "What is happening in the Gaza Strip is a tragedy. Shame on those who stay silent on the criminal blockade that has been imposed on Gaza. Shame on Arab and Islamic regimes and on the international community," Khaled Meshaal told a meeting in Syria on the right of return for Palestinian refugees. "Every Arab country could send a boat to Gaza" to break the blockade imposed since Hamas ousted forces loyal to Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in June last year, Meshaal said. Boats from Cyprus carrying peace activists have been able to do so three times in the past three months. On November 5 Israel tightened the Gaza blockade in response to rocket fire at its territory following a deadly raid into the impoverished and densely populated Palestinian territory. In a speech Meshaal said the return of Palestinian refugees to a homeland now under Israeli occupation was "a natural right guaranteed under international law." "Anyone who compromises on the right of return is party to a great crime," he said. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency, created in 1949 after the first Arab-Israeli war for Palestinian refugees in the Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, accords "refugee of Palestine" status to people who lived in Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, as well as to their descendants. While numbering 914,000 in 1950, the number of UNRWA-registered Palestinian refugees is currently around 4.6 million, according to the agency's figures. Nearly half a million live in Syria. "I call upon the Arabs not to be too hasty in proposing new initiatives" on peace with Israel, Meshaal said. "It is up to (US president-elect Barack) Obama to present something to the Arabs," he said. According to the official SANA news agency, the two-day Damascus meeting is being attended by Arab and foreign personalities, clerics and representatives of political parties.