Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Dozens of people threw shoes and stones at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's convoy as it entered the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Ma'an's correspondent said.

No one was injured during the hostile welcome and the vehicles, which crossed into the Hamas-ruled territory from southern Israel, pushed through the crowd and sped away.

Ban is visiting the region to try to restart long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Many of those who protested as the UN convoy passed were family members of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons. They hit the vehicles with signs bearing slogans accusing Ban of bias towards Israel and of refusing to meet the relatives of Palestinian prisoners.

A spokesman for deportees from the Israeli siege of Bethlehem's Nativity church in 2002 called on Ban to defend the rights of the Palestinian people, including detainees and deportees.

A number of Gazans whose homes were destroyed in Israel's war on the coastal enclave in 2008 held up signs reading "Gaza is living in darkness," and "Save the children of Gaza," Ma'an's correspondent said.

About 5,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli jails and securing their release is a highly emotive issue in Palestinian society.

Around 40 percent of Palestinian men living in the occupied territories have been detained by Israel at some point in their lives.

Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip in 2007, updating a previous policy of closure on the coastal enclave.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has called the blockade 'a collective punishment in clear violation of international humanitarian law' and urged the international community 'to ensure that repeated appeals by States and international organizations to lift the closure are finally heeded.'

* Reuters