GAZA, (PIC)-- Father Manuel Musallam, head of the Roman Catholic Church in the Gaza Strip said on Friday that it is Gaza's right not to die, and if it dies it will be in the battlefield. The Palestinian people will bear hunger and thirst because they seek freedom for themselves and not for their stomachs.

Father Musallam's comments were made during a press conference he held jointly with the head of the Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS), MP Jamal al-Khudari.

He pointed out that there were 1.5 million people in Gaza whose dignity the occupation is trying to trample on and for whom the occupation, supported by a world which is deaf and dumb and which hampers any resolution that differentiates between the aggressor and the victim, is building mass graves.

Musallam added that the residents of Gaza are suffering from a devastated economy, poverty, hunger, unemployment and oppression and that women have sold their homes' furniture and their jewellery to survive.

"There are thousands of Palestinian captives in Israeli jails, none of them is a prisoner of war, they are all hostages that include MPs, ministers, men, women and children. On the other hand there is a prisoner of war captured by the resistance from amongst hundreds of armed soldiers and tanks and the world is asking for freeing him while ignoring the Palestinian captives," said father Musallam.

Finally he asked the Arab world: "What are you betting on when you accept the bitter Gaza siege? Are you betting on the Arab initiative, the Annapolis conference or the Oslo accords while in fact they all died?"