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French Foreign Minister Mobbed by Angry Gazans

   VOA News  21 January 2011
   Angry  Palestinian  demonstrators  mob French Foreign Minister Michele
   Alliot-Marie's armoured car at Beit Hanun as she arrives to Gaza City,
   21 Jan 2011

Photo: AFP

   Angry  Palestinian  demonstrators  mob French Foreign Minister Michele
   Alliot-Marie's armoured car at Beit Hanun as she arrives to Gaza City,
   21 Jan 2011

   A  crowd of angry Palestinian protesters attempted to block the car of
   French  Foreign  Minister Michelle Alliot-Marie as she traveled to the
   Gaza Strip.
   Dozens  of protesters, many relatives of Palestinian prisoners held in
   Israeli  prisons,  surrounded  the  vehicle  shortly  after  it passed
   through a Hamas checkpoint Friday.
   The  protesters  were  angry  at  comments  mistakenly  attributed  to
   Alliot-Marie  following  a meeting with the parents of Israeli soldier
   Gilad  Shalit, who was captured by militants in 2006.  At the meeting
   Shalit's  father  asked  Alliot-Marie  to  press the European Union to
   condemn  his kidnapping as a war crime. News media however, attributed
   the statement to French foreign minister.
   Hamas  police eventually cleared the protesters allowing the convoy to
   continue its way to Gaza city.
   But  a  separate group of demonstrators accosted her motorcade once it
   arrived at a nearby French-funded hospital she was visiting.
   The  foreign  minister is in the region in an effort to revive stalled
   Mideast  peace talks. On Thursday she met with her Israeli counterpart
   Avigdor  Lieberman,  Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Israeli President
   Shimon Peres.

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