Tag: Free Gaza Movement

22 days to lift the siege on Gaza

In 22 days, the Israeli military invaded Gaza and left death and destruction in its wake.

In 22 days, we will focus on lifting the blockade of Gaza by pressuring Egypt and Israel to open the borders.

With participants from 22 countries, we will make this a truly international effort.

From May 22-June 14, delegations will amass at the Rafah border in Egypt and the Erez crossing in Israel, along with boats coming in from the Mediterranean Sea (via www.freegaza.org). We will envelop Gaza with solidarity in order to LIFT THE SIEGE.

With your help, we can do it. We will do it.

Here’s how you can help:

Organize your own delegation—students, labor, health workers, lawyers, artists, religious, environmentalists, farmers, peacemakers—sometime between May 22 and June 14. You can try to enter Gaza through either the Israeli or Egyptian border. CODEPINK, a U.S.-based peace group that took a 60-person delegation to Gaza in March 2009, can send you a detailed guide with info on hotels, transport, visas, etc. and help you camp at the border if you don’t get in. Contact us at gaza.codepink@gmail.com.

Participate in a delegation: If you don’t have the ability to organize a delegation but would like to join one, contact us at gaza.codepink@gmail.com. For a one-week trip, the per person cost is airfare to either Cairo or Tel Aviv, and then approximately $600 for other expenses (internal transport, hotel, food, visas, program in Gaza and donation to local groups).

Donate funds to this effort. You can donate online (https://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/424/shop/custom.jsp?donate_page_KEY=4489) or send a check made out to CODEPINK/Gaza to 2010 Linden Ave, Venice, CA 90291. You can also host a house party fundraiser.

Volunteer time to build the campaign: We need help with outreach, media, website, organizing teach-ins, setting up speaking engagements, etc. Contact us at gaza.codepink@gmail.com with ways you can help.

Thank you for your support. Together, we can take a stand to protect and respect the human rights and dignity of all people in the Middle East.

CODEPINK, www.codepinkalert.org

Background:
In March, CODEPINK organized a 60-person delegation, that included Alice Walker, to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and to give gift baskets to the women of Gaza on International Women’s Day. This campaign is the next step in our commitment to work for peace in the region. To read more about the previous Gaza delegation, click here (LINK to alert, http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=4761 ).

Find frequently updated news and analysis about the Gaza siege on our blog here: http://codepink4peace.org/blog/category/codepinkcampaigns/gazaisrael/

More info and resources on CODEPINK’s Gaza Campaign here:
http://codepinkalert.org/gaza

Additional background resources on Palestine and Israel here:
http://www.globalexchange.org/countries/mideast/palestine/background.html

Disappeared Free Gaza activist Teresa McDermott found in Israel’s Ramleh Prison

Teresa Mcdermott, held in Israel's Ramleh Prison
Teresa Mcdermott, held in Israel\’s Ramleh Prison

Free Gaza Movement

Scottish activist Teresa McDermott has been found in Ramleh prison four days after she was “disappeared” by the Israel government after being forcibly removed from a seaborne Lebanese aid mission to Gaza.

In early February Teresa responded to a call for support from internationals from the organizers of a Lebanese humanitarian aid voyage to Gaza aboard the Togo flagged ship, Tali. Teresa was one of only 9 passengers aboard the cargo ship on February 4, 2009 when Israeli gunboats intercepted it, boarded and forced the ship to Ashdod port in Israel.

All the passengers and crew aboard were released on Thursday, February 5 except Teresa. Between Thursday evening and Sunday morning there was no word about Teresa’s whereabouts except several false stories saying that “Britons” had departed to London. Finally on Sunday, Teresa was able to call her brother John in Scotland to say she was in Ramleh prison in Israel.

According to Al Jazeera journalist Salam Khodr, when the ship was boarded, the passengers were beaten and kicked by Israeli soldiers before being removed from the ship.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCb3apCJ4QI&hl=en&fs=1No information has been provided by Israeli officials about why Teresa has been detained, what the charges are if any and why her detention was concealed. When the British Consulate in Israel was contacted for assistance in finding Teresa, staff refused to help locate Teresa saying they couldn’t provide assistance to a UK citizen unless she personally requested it. Members of the Scottish Parliament including Pauline McNeil and Hugh O’Donnell who were part of a fall delegation to Gaza aboard the Free Gaza boat, Dignity, are working with the British government to ensure that Teresa receives the protection and assistance to which she is entitled.

Teresa went to Gaza with the first Free Gaza boats in August and returned with the ship Dignity for a second voyage. She is a respected, long time human rights activist who has worked with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine as well as with Free Gaza. At home in Scotland she works for the Post Office. The Israelis found only medical and other humanitarian aid on the Tali but refused to return the ship. The status of its humanitarian cargo is unknown.

Passengers of freighter seized by Israel return home with tales of abuse

Soldiers kicked and beat activists, journalists before setting them free

Andrew Wander | The Daily Star

BEIRUT: A group of activists arrested after the Israeli navy seized an aid ship bound for the devastated Gaza Strip were expelled from Israel on Friday, a day after being detained by the military. Fifteen of the Togolese-flagged Tali’s crew members were deported back to Lebanon and Syria early on Friday, and three others were preparing to fly to London.

Nine Lebanese and a Palestinian were handed over at the border with Israel to the UN peacekeeping force responsible for monitoring stability in southern Lebanon.

The freed crew told how they were beaten and handcuffed after Israeli gunboats fired on the ship and sailors stormed the vessel, arresting everyone on board. The boat was then towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod where it was searched.

Salam Khodr, an Al-Jazeera journalist who was on board the vessel, said the Israelis had taken the crew’s possessions when they were arrested. “The Israeli army confiscated all our videotapes; we were separated from each other, we were blindfolded and handcuffed. They beat some of us; I was beaten,” she said.

“The soldiers kicked Dr Hani Suleiman, in the chest and back; we asked for a physician to check Dr Suleiman who suffered short breath; one Israeli female soldier answered: ‘You should have thought about his health condition before you attempted to come and break the siege of Gaza’,” Khodr said.

An Israeli military spokes-man admitted that no arms had been found on the ship, which turned out to be laden with medicine, food, and humanitarian supplies for the population of the war ravaged enclave.

Israel is enforcing a tight blockade of Gaza, but said that blood donations that were on board had been immediately transferred to territory. More than 1000 units of donated blood were part of the ship’s humanitarian cargo.

The Arab League described the seizure of the vessel and the detention of those on board as “an act of piracy,” and said it would complain to the United Nations about the incident.

But Israeli officials defended their actions, saying that the boat had raised suspicions because “it could threaten security concerns, or furthermore, the boat could be used for smuggling banned equipment [weaponry etc.] into or out of the Gaza Strip.”

The ship set sail from Tripoli on Tuesday, docking in Cyprus where its cargo was checked before beginning its onward journey towards Gaza. But it was intercepted by Israeli helicopters and gunboats as it tried to enter Gazan territorial waters.

Israel denies that their sailors fired at the ship, but passengers insist that they came under attack. “They opened fire on us,” Khodr said.

The Tali remains in port at Ashdod and there has been no indication of when it will be allowed to sail.

In the months before Israel’s recent military offensive in Gaza, several boats breached the naval blockade to deliver aid and free Palestinian students trapped in the coastal strip.

But since fighting in Gaza began at the end of last year, Israel has clamped down on aid shipments entering the enclave. Last month an Iranian ship was prevented from delivering humanitarian supplies, and in December a vessel belonging to the Free Gaza Movement was rammed and badly damaged by an Israeli gunboat.

The interception of the Tali marks the first time Israel has captured an aid ship and its crew, and will be seen as a clear signal that it will not tolerate further attempts to circumvent the blockade of Gaza.

Hamas has said that lifting the crippling restrictions on the territory’s borders is a precondition for any sustainable ceasefire with Israel, but the Jewish state has so far refused to consider relinquishing control of the borders. – With agencies

Aid workers and journalists risk life in Gaza

International Solidarity Movement volunteers Eva Bartlett and Ewa Jasiewicz were featured on Russia Today for their activism and reporting from Gaza.

Humanitarian workers and rights activists in Gaza are helping locals put their lives back together after the three-week-long Israeli offensive. Many aid workers were in the region during the fighting and came under fire along with residents.

FGM: Israel threatens to shoot unarmed civilians aboard mercy ship

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Israeli navy today threatened to kill unarmed civilians aboard a mercy ship on its way to deliver medical supplies and doctors to besieged Gaza.

The Free Gaza Movement ship, SPIRIT OF HUMANITY, left Cyprus Wednesday morning carrying doctors, journalists, human rights workers, and parliamentarians. The ship also carried over a ton of desperately needed medicines donated by the European Campaign to Break the Siege, and intended for overwhelmed hospitals in the Gaza Strip. At the request of the ship’s organizers the passenger list and manifest were publicly released, and Cypriot authorities searched the boat prior to its departure in order to certify that it only carried humanitarian items. The organizers also sent an official notification to the Israeli government of their intent to break through the blockade of Gaza.

At roughly 3am UST (1am GMT), in international waters 100 miles off the coast of Gaza, at least five Israeli gunboats surrounded the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY and began recklessly cutting in front of the slow-moving civilian craft. The Israeli warships radioed the SPIRIT, demanding that the ship turn around or they would open fire and “shoot.” When asked if the Israeli navy was acknowledging that they intended to commit a war crime by deliberately firing on unarmed civilians, the warships replied that they were prepared to use “any means” to stop the ship.

An earlier attempt by Free Gaza to deliver doctors and medical supplies ended on 30 December when Israeli gunboats deliberately and repeatedly rammed the DIGNITY, almost sinking that ship. Rather than endanger the lives of its passengers, the SPIRIT is now returning to Cyprus.

Israel’s reckless and shocking threats against an unarmed ship on a mission of mercy are a violation of both international maritime law and the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, which states that “the high seas should be reserved for peaceful purposes.”

CALL the Israeli Government and demand that it immediately STOP attacking the civilian population of Gaza and STOP using violence to prevent human rights and humanitarian assistance to the Palestinian people.

Mark Regev in the Prime Minister’s office:
+972 2670 5354 or +972 5 0620 3264
mark.regev@it.pmo.gov.il

Shlomo Dror in the Ministry of Defence:
+972 3697 5339 or +972 50629 8148
mediasar@mod.gov.il

Israeli Navy Spokesperson:
+ 972 5 781 86248

For more information, please contact:
(Cyprus) Lubna Masarwa, +357 97 625 828
(Cyprus) Mary Hughes, +357 99 081 767
(Gaza) Ewa Jasiewicz, +972 598 700 497