Massachusetts Institute of Technology linguistics professor and prominent Israel critic Noam Chomsky has spoken at a conference at the Islamic University in Gaza.

It was Professor Chomsky’s first visit to the Gaza Strip. Although he tried to visit the West Bank in 2010 to deliver a lecture, he was denied access. This visit was co-ordinated with Egyptian authorities through the Rafah crossing.

In his speech Prof Chomsky called on Israel to “end the siege on Gaza”, adding that “the Palestinian people have a right to live peacefully and in freedom.”

It is not the first time that the notoriously outspoken Professor Chomsky has commented on this issue. In his foreword to Professor Chomsky’s book “The Fateful Triangle”, the late Palestinian academic Edward Said wrote that “Chomsky's major claim is that Israel and the United States — especially the latter — are rejectionists opposed to peace, whereas the Arabs, including the PLO, for years have been trying to accommodate themselves to the reality of Israel”.