ROME, November 24, 2007, (WAFA)- Agriculture Minister Mahmoud al-Habbash called Friday on the international community to support the Palestinian agricultural sector in light of the Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and its land.

In a speech he delivered in the 34 Conference of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization held in Rome, al-Habbash pointed out the Israeli obstacles ahead the agricultural development process in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) as the agricultural products are not allowed to be moved from the places of production into the places of consumption by installing mobile and immobile military blockades between the Palestinian governments, uprooting fruitful trees, razing croplands, preventing landowners from harvesting crops, seizing natural water resources and the Apartheid Wall which divides cultivated lands from being reached.

He added that the Apartheid Wall isolates the OPT, the thing that makes the Palestinian citizen’s life more difficult as it increased poverty among the members of the society.

He asserted that the Israeli occupation practices created a very tough conditions in the agricultural sector to the extent that the direct and indirect losses mounted to US $ 1.5 milliard besides thousands of hectares were seized or isolated.

In conclusion, al-Habbash thanked the organization for the ultimate support for the Palestinian agricultural sector and called on all the honored of the world to aside the Palestinian issue.