Big support for a just cause

Malaysia strongly supports the Palestinian people's bid for freedom from Israeli occupation and Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak took the opportunity to make a historic humanitarian working trip to the Gaza Strip.

Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak travelled by land from the El-Arish airport near the Egyptian border to Gaza City in Palestine in a historic humanitarian working visit there yesterday.

The land crossing allowed the Prime Minister to see for himself the effects of an Israeli attack on the city in November.

During his nearly two-hour car trip, Najib would have also gained a rare glimpse of the hardship that the 1.7 million residents of the Gaza Strip have had to endure in their struggle for liberation.

Just half the size of Perlis but with a population that is eight times larger, the 369 sq km Gaza Strip, along with the West Bank which borders Jordan, make up the Palestinian occupied territories whose cause Malaysia has long championed.