Residents of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip are calling random Americans and urging them to vote for Barack Obama in the upcoming US presidential election.

The Palestinian daily newspaper Al-Hayat Al-Jadida reported on Sunday that the effort is being led by 23-year-old Ibrahim Abu Jayyab who, together with a team of like-minded individuals, is using free online telephony services to make repeated long-distance calls to the US.

In remarks translated by Palestinian Media Watch, Abu Jayyab told the newspaper that he and his friends are simply dialing random numbers prefixed with US area codes and then trying to persuade whomever answers to vote for Obama.

The report noted that most Palestinians hate the US because its government has traditionally supported Israel. Abu Jayyab and others are convinced that Obama will change that.