Marianne of Gothenburg will leave her home port at 7 pm on the 10 of May. The trawler, which has been acquired by Ship to Gaza Sweden and Ship to Gaza Norway jointly, departs for a voyage of almost 5000 nautical miles to eastern Mediterranean and the blockaded Gaza Strip.
Marianne of Gothenburg
Marianne will join other ships and together they will form the “Freedom Flotilla III” in order to perform a peaceful, nonviolent action to break the illegal and inhumane blockade of the Gaza Strip.
In passing Marianne will call at European ports for manifestations against the blockade. The First three ports will be Helsingborg, Malmö and Copenhagen. The subsequent ports will be announced in press releases.
Cargo
Marianne is not a cargo-ship, but she will bring a limited cargo of, among other things, solar cell panels and medical equipment.
The solar cell panels are a gift from ETC-El. In the blockaded Gaza Strip, where the infrastructure has been demolished, solar cells will thus provide an opportunity to independent local production of clean energy. The sun can not be blockaded.
Delegates
In addition to a crew of five people, Marianne will have up to eight delegates as passengers in each section of the route. The names of these individuals will be announced as time progress. In the first section are among others:
Maria Svensson, pro. tem. spokesperson, Feministiskt initiativ
Mikael M Karlsson, Chairperson, Ship to Gaza Sweden
Henry Ascher, professor of Public Health, paediatrician
Lennart Berggren, filmmaker
Dror Feiler, musician, spokesperson of Ship to Gaza
1st May 2015 | International Solidarity Movement | Occupied Palestine
We, Palestinians struggling against Israeli Apartheid, stand in solidarity with the residents of Baltimore.
We send our condolences to the family of Freddie Gray and all those murdered in police custody. We add our voices to the demand that the killers be held accountable. We send our solidarity to the families of the prisoners. Those arrested for demanding justice, for being black, brown or poor. We add our voices to the demand for their immediate and unconditional release. We stand in solidarity with those whose homes have been foreclosed, with those who live under the constant watch of surveillance cameras and under the constant threat of being stopped, harassed, arrested and assaulted by a militarized police force in their own streets.
Your struggle for justice, equality and freedom is our struggle.
In solidarity,
University Teachers’ Association – Gaza
Palestinian Students’ Campaign for the Academic Boycott of Israel (PSCABI)
Bader Campaign for the Boycott of Israeli Goods
Herak Youth Center
One Democratic State Group (ODSG)
Youth Against Settlements (YAS)
The Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC)
The popular committee of Bil’in against the wall and settlements
30th April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement – support group | Czech Republic
Prominent figures of Czech political and public life call on the organizers of Pilsen 2015 to step down as hosts of the Days of Jerusalem festival.
The Days of Jerusalem festival is taking place in the city of Pilsen as part of the European Capital of Culture 2015 initiative this year. It will occur between the 18th and 21st of June and its subsequent activities will echo throughout Prague, on the 22nd and 23rd of June. In response, civil initiatives engaged in dealing with the issue of occupation of Palestine wrote an open letter to the organizers of Pilsen 2015, requesting that they step down as hosts of this festival.
Journalist and formerly incarcerated dissident, Petr Uhl; former foreign minister and former President of the United Nations General Assembly, Jan Kavan; vice-chairman of the Green Movement, Tomáš Tožička; politician and journalist, Matěj Stropnický; philosopher and political activist, Ivan Bartoš; politician and professor, Šádí Shanaáh; poet and author, Milan Kohout, and many others upheld the call with their signatures, which reads, in part:
“The Days of Jerusalem event is part of a political strategy through which the State of Israel seeks to secure legitimation of its illegal annexation of Jerusalem. This is further supported by the fact that several Israeli government agencies will partake in the festival’s organization. Thus, via the festival Days of Jerusalem, the Czech public is misinformed and deliberately dragged into a highly controversial political game in which your event – Pilsen 2015 – is nothing more than another playing field.”
“…The organizers of Pilsen 2015 have an obligation to the Czech public. The public has the right to be well informed and not be manipulated by one side. Other countries in Europe are aware of this obligation.”
Contacts for media:
Zdeněk Jehlička (Initiative Not in Our Name! – For a Just Peace in the Middle East)
tel. no.: +420 603 369 574, email: nenasimjmenem@gmail.com | ism-czech.org
24th April 2015 | International Solidarity Movement, Huwwara Team | Kafr Qaddum, Occupied Palestine
Yesterday’s Friday demonstration in Kafr Qaddum continued the trend of senseless and extreme violence from Israeli forces against Palestinian villagers, as the ISM has reported on numerous occasions. Even before the villagers had begun their march, one Palestinian teenager was shot in the foot with live ammunition (a 0.22 caliber bullet) by an Israeli sniper and rushed to the hospital.
Villagers of Kafr Qaddum begin their weekly protest
This weeks march had only lasted for a few minutes before protesters were met with tear gas and stun grenades, causing around 100 protesting villagers to run for cover behind nearby houses.
Teenager most likely loses his eye after getting shot
Sudden panic arose seconds later, when another young Palestinian teenager was shot straight in his eye with a rubber-coated steel bullet. At the time of writing, non-confirmed reports suggests that the boy will not be able to recover from the damages inflicted and will lose his eye. The injured Palestinian was first taken to the Rafidia Hospital in Nablus, only to be quickly transferred to Ramallah Hospital for surgery. The ISM is waiting for a final confirmation on the outcome of the injury.
Teenager shot in the eye rushed into the ambulance
The brutality of the Israeli occupation forces only continued after this, first shooting Friday’s third victim in his leg and the fourth in his back, both with rubber-coated steel bullets. Yet another two Palestinian teenagers were subsequently shot. While it remains unclear where the bullets hit their bodies, reports from the ground said they only suffered superficial damages.
Young protester just shot in the back with rubber-coated steel bullet
The march continues
The villager’s march towards the eastern outskirt of the village resumed after the extreme violence and finally reached a point overlooking the illegal Israeli settlement Kedumim, established in 1975. This is a focal point for the weekly demonstrations, because Israel has closed the road which prior to 2003 connected Kafr Qaddum with Nablus, located 14 kilometers to the east and an important Palestinian commercial center. The road closure therefore significantly increases traveling costs and sharply reduces employment opportunities for the villagers of Kafr Qaddum. Since the Second Intifada the village has seen a staggering unemployment rate of 75 per cent. Some estimates suggest that the road closure has led to a yearly emigration rate of between ten and fifteen per cent of the total population.
Rubber tire burning “not good” for settler laundry
Upon reaching this point of the road, the protest assumed its usual form of villagers setting fire to tires.
Time to burn some tires
This is done as a response to the massive amount of tear gas used against them by Israeli forces and to send a strong signal demanding the road re-opened. Israeli forces usually respond quickly to the burning of tires, as Israeli settlers have issued several complaints that it leaves a terrible smell over the settlement and prevents them from hanging out their laundry to dry.
Smoke blowing over the illegal Kedumim settlement
As yesterday’s fire grew and there was a surprising lack of response from the Israeli military, the Palestinians called of for the discontinuation of the protest shouting halas, Arabic for “enough”.
On Wednesday night, the Tohta family received a demolition order for their house in the occupied East Jerusalem neighborhood of Wadi al-Joz. After being warned that soldiers would come early on Sunday morning for the demolition, the family was joined by a group of about a dozen international supporters. Despite the warning, nothing happened that night – leaving the family afraid that their house could be demolished at any time without prior warning.
Aref Tohta and his family
After being told by soldiers that during a demolition they “don’t see anything in front of [them]”, meaning everything will be destroyed, Aref Tohta and his family moved their most needed and precious belongings out of the house. They piled up boxes with warm clothes and blankets for the night, as far away from the house as possible, moved animal shelters and gave the five family dogs away knowing that they would be killed in a demolition.
The family is moving belongings and animal shelters in order to protect them from a demolition
A demolition of the family home will leave the fifteen family members without a shelter. Twelve of them are children aged between four and eighteen years. Jenny, an ISM-volunteer, staying with the family during the night explained: “any noise – a car door slamming somewhere, a voice heard in the vicinity – made everyone turn their head towards it, fearing an imminent destruction of the house. The fear was visible on everyone’s face”.
When no demolition happened, the father believed it was because the army did not want to have an international presence documenting this aggression. Now, the family lives in constant fear of the army showing up without any prior warning and tearing down the house. Aref Tohta explained the uncertainty the family has to live with every day: “Tomorrow, I don’t know if I have a place to sleep”.
Eight of the family members in front of their house.
Wadi al-Joz located directly outside the Old City of Jerusalem, is a vulnerable neighborhood that has seen three demolitions in the last three weeks. On 31st of March, the army illegally demolished the Amro family home, neighbors of the Tohta’s, without any demolition order or prior warning.
