"Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and several foreign ministers of European and Arab countries met in London yesterday ahead of the international “Friends of Palestine’’ meeting in Tunis. They discussed urgent efforts to provide humanitarian assistance, especially medical supplies to Gaza and other battered cities.
“We hope to see new pledges of emergency assistance for Palestinians caught in Israel’s stranglehold, and international coordination and diplomatic pressure on Tel Aviv to convince it to allow humanitarian aid those who need it most,’’ Clinton said.
A senior State Department official traveling with Clinton said that countries were ready to provide considerable assistance “within days’’ through UN relief agencies, but that “the real challenge is the access issue.’’
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