Hamas ask Kerry to take a note to Obama

Friday, February 20. Hamas leaders have used Senator John Kerry’s visit to the Gaza Strip to try to send a letter to Barack Obama. The UN says Hamas officals delivered a written message that could be passed on to Kerry and eventually to the US President. Asked what was written in the letter, a UN Relief and Works Agency spokesman said: "We are very polite at UNRWA, we don't open other people's mail."

Kerry is visiting the region as head of the Senate foreign relations committee, not as a representative of the Obama administration. He entered Gaza with two Congressmen, Brian Baird and Keith Ellison, yesterday. Their visit was intended to draw attention to the humanitarian situation in the region and the group was not scheduled to meet with Hamas.

However, it is believed to be the first time a senior American politician has visited the war-torn costal enclave since 2005. Along with Israel and the EU, the US regards Hamas as a terrorist organisation and has always refused to enter into dialogue with the Islamist regime.

Speaking earlier this week in the Israeli town of Sderot – a regular target of Qassam rockets fired from within Gaza by Hamas militants – Kerry said: "We feel very deeply that no one should live under this kind of threat, no children should be raised in that kind of fear. We are sympathetic with the crisis that people face on a daily basis here in Israel, from those who choose no other path other than to use instruments of terror."

The former presidential candidate – he stood unsuccessfully against George Bush in 2004 - has also said: "[The visit] does not indicate any shift whatsoever with respect to Hamas... what it indicates is our effort to listen and to learn."

FIRST POSTED FEBRUARY 20, 2009