Apple Co-Founder Went To Gaza, Maybe

“Had a good time visiting Jerusalem and Gaza Strip today… Peace.”

Robert Galbraith / Reuters

Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak traveled to Israel this week — and had this say about his stay on his popular Facebook page: "Had a good time visiting Jerusalem and Gaza Strip today. If Israel did not react, the rockets would continue anyway. If Hamas halted rockets, Israel would not attack them. Peace."

A spokesperson for Wozniak told BuzzFeed that they had "no idea" whether Wozniak in fact crossed into the Gaza Strip, which suffered widespread destruction during a two-month long war with Israel that left more than 2,000 dead. In response to one commenter to his Facebook post on Sunday, Wozniak wrote, "I looked across a few miles to Gaza," but did not mention entering.

The picture accompanying the post is of The City of David archeological site in East Jerusalem, which is a popular but contested tourist destination.

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The City of David is one of Jerusalem's top tourism sites, and features a large complex with excavated areas of ancient Jerusalem, parts of which were said to have been built by Kind David. Israel has characterized the archeological area as a national park, and excavations have found evidence of Jewish life going back millennia.

But the site is highly contested between Israeli Jews who claim it is an important historical site for Israel, and current Palestinian residents who claim that the site has become a political tool to marginalize their Jerusalem presence.

The City of David is located in the East Jerusalem Palestinian neighborhood of Silwan, an area behind the 1967-border that is considered to be occupied by Israel under international law. The site is run by Elad, a private organization founded in 1986 to reclaim the homes of former Jewish residents in the area, under an agreement with the Israel Nature and Parks Authority (INPA).

Wozniak was in Israel to attend the EduAction Forum, an annual education forum held outside of Tel Aviv. He gave a talk entitled "The Apple Doesn't Fall Far From the Tree" on his shared passion for teaching and tech, The Jerusalem Post reported.

On his Facebook page, Wozniak also took the time to respond to some commenters criticizing elements of both Hamas and Israel's actions. Towards the end he concluded:

"I don't want to get deeper into this discussion because a lot of you might not like what I think about a lot of things. Better to try and work together in whatever fair or unfair world we have. Communication is the best tool to finding compromise and rockets get in the way. The only peace agreement, of sorts, that I recall was between Israel and Egypt and President Carter told me himself of how an act of kindness from himself toward one of the leaders enabled it to happen. It can happen."


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