Ashton in rare Gaza visit, condemns deadly rocket attack (2nd Roundup)

Mar 18, 2010, 16:14 GMT

Gaza - Palestinian militants launched a rocket from the Gaza Strip at Israel Thursday, killing one person, as the EU's foreign affairs supremo made an extremely rare foray into the coastal region by a top diplomat.

The fatality was the first from Palestinian rocket fire since Israel's offensive against Gaza militants 14 months ago.

A radical Muslim group, calling itself the Jund Anssar Al-Sunna (Soldiers of Sunna Supporters), took responsibility for the rocket, which was fired shortly after Catherine Ashton arrived in the Gaza Strip with the intention of seeing for herself the conditions under which Palestinians.

In a statement issued after the missile launching, Ashton said she was 'extremely shocked by the rocket attack and the tragic loss of life.'

'I said when I came to Israel that part of the reason for my trip to this region is to express my concern that we move as quickly as we can to proximity (indirect Israeli-Palestinian) talks.

'I urge everyone to continue to work in that direction and to make sure these incidents cannot deter us from finding a lasting peace for this region,' she said.

Ashton visited an elementary school in northern Gaza Strip and a food distribution centre belonging to the United Nation and met with UN officials and local Palestinian dignitaries.

Her tour encompassed areas which were hit in last year's 22-day Israeli offensive against Gaza militants. According to human rights organizations, some 1,400 Palestinians, most of the civilians, were killed in the fighting, and thousands of homes and buildings destroyed.

Ashton's itinerary did not include meetings with officials from the Islamist Hamas movement, which administers the strip, but which is subject to a Western political and diplomatic boycott because of its refusal to renounce violence, honour past Israeli-Palestinian agreements and change its charter to recognise the Jewish state.

'I hope that my visit would help the efforts to improve the living conditions of Gaza population,' Ashton told a news conference in Gaza City.

She said she intended telling a meeting of the Mideast Quartet - the US, Russia, the UN and the EU - taking place in Moscow on Friday, of 'the suffering of the Gaza Strip population.'

Israel has enforced a stringent blockade of Gaza in June 2006, after Palestinian militants led by Hamas snatched an Israeli soldier during a cross-border raid.

Three Israeli and Palestinian human rights organizations praised Ashton's decision to visit Gaza, seeing her trip 'as proof of the growing opposition to Israel's policy to isolate Gaza from the rest of the world and collectively punish its million-and-a-half residents, more than half of whom are children.'

In a joint statement, the three organizations - Physicians for Human Rights Israel, Adalah and Al Mezan - also called on the Israeli government 'to see Ashton's visit as an opportunity to lift the siege and rebuild the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.'

Israel meanwhile vowed a 'harsh response' to the rocket attack which killed a Thai worker at Nataiv Ha'asara, a location close to the Gaza Strip.

Hamas evacuated police and security forces from several buildings in the Strip, for fear of an immediate Israeli retaliation.

It was the third rocket attack in 12 hours, an Israeli military spokeswoman said. Around 30 projectiles from the Gaza Strip have been launched at Israel since the beginning of the year.