Special report: Palestine-Israel Relations

    GAZA, Feb. 25 (Xinhua) -- A spokesman for the deposed Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip said on Monday that the Israeli threats to target the "human chain," which is staged against Israeli siege on Gaza, will not scare away the participants." The Israeli threats won't succeed to scare those who came to join the biggest ever demonstration," said Taher al-Nouno, Hamas government spokesman.

    At least 50,000 Palestinians, most of them are school children, formed a 40-km-long human chain along Salah el-Dein road between northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun and southern Gaza town of Rafah. Al-Nouno said that the demonstrators want to reiterate in this way their demand for an end of the unfair siege imposed on Gaza. Israel has been sealing off all Gaza crossings since the Islamic Hamas movement ousted security forces loyal to moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and seized the enclave in mid June 2007.

    The spokesman said that the protest would be peaceful, but warned that "no one would guarantee what will happen next if the unfair siege is kept imposed on the Palestinian people." However, the Israeli army has been on a high alert on the borders between Gaza Strip and Israel for fear that the demonstrators would breach the border and flock into its territories.

    On Jan. 23, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians poured into Egypt's Sinai Peninsular after Hamas militants blew holes in the border fence separating Egypt and the Gaza Strip. The borders were re-closed early this month following an agreement between Hamas and Egypt.