A GWENT AM hopes to create awareness of the situation in Palestine, following his trip there to build links with Newport.

John Griffiths, AM for Newport East, travelled to the territories occupied by Israel with a group of Newport youth leaders, students and development workers to see youth work on the West Bank.

He said: "I saw important and impressive projects attempting to cope with the reality of decades of conflict in the region and the current occupation by Israel.

"We met young Palestinian men and women, determined to benefit from education and training despite the obstacles and difficulties involved."

These obstacles included:

l general travel restrictions;

l military checkpoints;

l Israeli settlements with access roads only for them;

l the'apartheid wall' separating and cutting off villages, towns and communities.

Mr Griffiths said this was in addition to "the oppression, poverty and hardship all around".

He said: "The work of East Jerusalem YMCA is impressive, training male and female youths in building, electrical, electronic and mechanical skills in Jericho.

"Just outside Bethlehem, there is rehabilitation for those physically and psychologically damaged - many of them children of the Intifada.

"In school they drew guns and tanks rather than cars and houses. And at the nearby Dhaisheh refugee camp, children danced and sang of a longing to return home to some sort of normality.