Ellison touring Gaza: Conditions are 'shocking'

[ProgressiveMuslim]

By Cynthia Dizikes | Thursday, Feb. 19, 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Against the advice of the U.S. State Department, Rep. Keith Ellison traveled to the Gaza Strip today to view the recent destruction by Israel and to help inform policy he hopes to develop as a newly appointed member of the House foreign affairs committee.

The Minnesota Democrat, who was accompanied by Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., was one of the first members of Congress to enter the area since the Islamic militant group Hamas took power nearly two years ago. Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also toured Gaza today. Kerry, D-Mass., entered the Gaza Strip separately from Ellison and Baird.

"As a member of the U.S. Congress, it is critical that we see it," Ellison said by phone. "We make decisions about this part of the world all the time from Washington, D.C., and yet we were the first people from the American government to come here in three years."


Ellison and Baird, who were escorted by native Minnesotan and U.N. worker Stephanie Fox, met with residents of Gaza and relief workers for most of the day on Thursday.

The trip came hours after Israel declared that it would not open Gaza's blocked borders until Hamas militants freed a captured Israeli soldier. The State Department had warned the Congressmen about security concerns in the region.

Ellison said that he found the conditions in Gaza "shocking."

"I have been to war zones before," Ellison said. "I have been to Afghanistan and I have been to Iraq, but the level of devastation here was really bad."

Both Congressmen roamed the rubble for hours, moving from destroyed homes, to a ruined cookie factory, to a school that had been bombed, killing the caretaker inside.

Emotional experience
The experience was an emotional one for Ellison. "I was just shaking, and I found myself a little speechless," he said.

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http://www.minnpost.com/stories/2009/02/19/6835/ellison_touring_gaza_conditions_are_shocking