by Saud Abu Ramadan, Emad Drimly

Hundreds of demonstrators on Sunday marked the 1,000-day Israeli blockade imposed on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, while the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) is planning to declare economic independence from Israel.

The demonstrators, including physically disabled residents, as well as children and families of Palestinians killed by Israel during last winter's war, were led by the Gaza-based Popular Committee to Challenge the Israeli Siege, and gathered near the borders between northern Gaza Strip and Israel.

They waved Palestinian flags and carried pictures of the war's victims as well as banners with the slogan "1,000 days of unfair siege is enough" and "freedom for Gaza." Foreign peace activists also joined the protest, during which demonstrators tried to reach Erez border crossing controlled by Israel.

"This huge protest is a clear call for the international community to move as quickly as possible to end the Israeli siege, which failed to achieve its political goals and left the whole population of Gaza starving and suffering," said Jamal al-Khudari, chairman of the committee.

According to al-Khudari, the demonstrators chanted slogans calling on Israel to end the tight blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip after Hamas movement seized control of the impoverished enclave by force in June 2007, and routed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security forces.

He called on the Palestinians to go for a popular Intifada, or uprising, against Israel, and urged the Arab nations in the world to carry out similar popular activities to press Israel to lift the blockade, adding "the siege deprived the population here from achieving their self-determination."

The crowd was peacefully dispersed. "The occupation practiced the most awful measures against Gaza, but completely failed to break our determination," al-Khudari told reporters.

"It is time now for Israel to make a recalculation, respond to the international appeals and rights groups and declare that it failed to achieve the goals of the siege," said al-Khudari, adding "senior Arab, international leaders and officials should come and visit Gaza."

The European Union high representative for foreign affairs and security policy Catherine Ashton and the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon had announced they will head to Israel and the Palestinian territories this week, and will visit the Gaza Strip to look at the local people's living conditions.

Eva Partlit, member of the International Solidarity Movement and who joined the protest against the siege, told reporters that "for some people, the 1,000-day Israeli siege seems like an economic one, but no one knows that this siege had destroyed local people's daily life."

The blockade had caused severe economic damage for the Gaza Strip, the Popular Committee estimated that unemployment rate in the enclave had reached 65 percent, and losses of economic, industrial and agricultural aspects were estimated at millions of U.S. dollars.

Meanwhile, Abdul Hafiz Nofal, deputy minister of economy in the (PNA) government in the West Bank, told Xinhua in an interview that the PNA is working to get rid of economic dependence on Israel and upgrade Palestinian economy to a level of equality with Israel, an official said Sunday.

"The economic independence will help the PNA in its quest for political self-determination," said Nofal, adding "the Palestinians want to tell the international community within the coming two years that they are ready to declare an independent Palestinian state."

However, the PNA would face severe difficulties in declaring complete economic independence from Israel, as East Jerusalem, the capital of the future state is still disputed and the Gaza Strip is still under the control of rival Hamas movement.

The PNA Prime Minister Salam Fayyad had announced last August a two-year-long plan to develop and upgrade national institutions so they would be ready for any possible political solution with Israel based on declaring an independent Palestinian state in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967.

"These plans focus on the infrastructure projects for the state and the relation with the private sector," according to Nofal.