GAZA, February 25, 2010 (WAFA) - Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin on Thursday entered the besieged Gaza Strip for a one-day humanitarian visit.

Martin, who entered Gaza through Rafah crossing, told a news conference at UNRWA headquarters in Gaza City he paid his first ever visit to Gaza a United Nations request to closely look at the situation in the Gaza Strip.

He added that he came to visit areas that were destroyed during the last year's Israeli war on the Gaza Strip which left 1400 citizens killed.

'I visited two schools and I looked at the educational curriculum, mainly teaching human rights,' Martin said, adding 'I saw by my own eyes the suffering of the schoolchildren who study at classrooms made out of steel.'

He added that the reason that schoolchildren study at steel containers instead of regular classrooms is not allowing construction raw materials into the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli closure of the border crossings.