Turkey PM planning to visit Gaza

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan says he wants to visit Gaza Strip and described last month’s visit there by the emir of Qatar as a positive step. Vatan newspaper quotes Erdogan as saying yesterday he will determine the date of his trip with Gaza’s Hamas leadership. On Oct. 23, Qatar’s Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani became the first head of state to visit Gaza since Hamas came to power there five years ago. Erdogan says he once proposed visiting Gaza with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas who was “warm” to the idea. He did not say whether he will ask Abbas again to join him. A Palestinian was seriously wounded by cross-border fire from an Israeli tank in the central Gaza Strip yesterday, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Health Ministry said. He did not give the man’s name or the exact circumstances but said he was 22 years old and close to the border fence with Israel, east of Bureij refugee camp, when he was hit. The Israeli military said that troops in the area fired at a person seen approaching the fence. “They believed he was attempting to plant an explosive charge,”