Little story of some immediate good Kerry did in Gaza

[karynnj]

"However, an incident occured last week at a crossing into the Gaza Strip that gave a very different impression to a senior observer. When Senator John Kerry visited the Strip, he learned that many trucks loaded with pasta were not permitted in. When the chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee inquired as to the reason for the delay, he was told by United Nations aid officials that "Israel does not define pasta as part of humanitarian aid - only rice shipments."

Kerry asked Barak about the logic behind this restriction, and only after the senior U.S. official's intervention did the defense minister allow the pasta into the Strip. The U.S. senator updated colleagues at the Senate and other senior officials in Washington of the details of his visit."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1066821.html

This was after Clinton and EU officials have officially asked Israel to not stop humanitarian aid from reaching the Gaza strip. It also does show precisely why his visit was extremely important. It made it clear that the US was watching and getting first hand information. I would bet that this is not the only issue that Kerry brought up with Israel after that trip.

It also seems to me that the reporter was making a point with using the word "senior" three times. The Israeli media is vibrant with many papers and Israelis are reportedly big newspaper readers. I would guess that the action of stopping the pasta in the first place will anger many who read this.