Tag: Gaza

NLG: The Flotilla Must Sail Freely!

1 July 2011 | National Lawyers Guild International Committee

NLG IC calls on US government end its pressure on the Greek government and demand that Israel refrain from attacking the flotilla

National Lawyers Guild: The Flotilla Must Sail Freely!
National Lawyers Guild: The Flotilla Must Sail Freely!

Today, the U.S. Boat to Gaza, the Audacity to Hope, was stopped by the Greek Coast Guard as it attempted to begin its journey to Gaza, apparently as a result of U.S/Israeli pressure. The National Lawyers Guild International Committee called on the US government to end its pressure on the Greek government to act against the Flotilla and demand that Israel refrain from violence against peaceful protesters soon to be embarking on Freedom Flotilla Two – Stay Human, an international civilian seaborne freedom ride to Gaza that seeks to break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza. The IC also urged that Greece provide free passage to the flotilla boats to Gaza.

The “Audacity of Hope,” is an American flagged vessel and is expected to carry 36 passengers, including the well-known author and poet Alice Walker. One quarter of its passengers are Jewish Americans. The Audacity of Hope is currently held by the Greek Coast Guard just off the Greek coast. The Greek government is widely reported to be under massive U.S. and Israeli pressure to stop the flotilla from sailing and is reported, in response to this pressure, to have issued a statement that no ship may leave its harbor for Gaza.

The Israeli government has recently made outrageous allegations against the flotilla, accusing the boats of carrying sulfur and other weapons to attack Israeli military forces. The “Audacity of Hope” opened itself yesterday to public media inspection in order to disprove such claims.

Rather than defend U.S. citizens’ right to travel freely and to participate in humanitarian activities, the U.S. State Department has participated instead in justifying Israeli attacks and threatening flotilla members. At a news conference in the White House last Wednesday Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stated that “we think that it’s not helpful for there to be flotillas that try to provoke actions by entering into Israeli waters and creating a situation in which the Israelis have the right to defend themselves.”

“Rather than using US influence to protect peaceful demonstrators, including American citizens, Clinton signals advance approval for Israel to violently attack them,” said Audrey Bomse, co-chair of the Free Palestine Subcommittee (FPSC) of the National Lawyers Guild. “What is illegal and provocative is the Israeli siege. The only action the freedom riders in the flotilla are trying to provoke is change in Israeli policy–ending its illegal siege on Gaza. The Israeli government has not and cannot defend its illegal collective punishment of more than one million civilians living in Gaza. And piling on the crime of attacking civilian protesters as they sail through international and Gazan waters–not Israeli waters–can never be justified. We call on the State Department to clearly demand that Israel refrain from any and all threat or use of violence and allow the boats to proceed to Gaza.”

The State Department also attempted to use material support laws to threaten flotilla participants, stating, “delivering or attempting or conspiring to deliver material support or other resources to, or for the benefit of, a designated foreign terrorist organisation, such as Hamas, could violate US civil and criminal statutes and could lead to fines and incarceration,” in a statement on the flotilla. Since the only cargo the US Boat to Gaza is carrying is letters of solidarity, to carry out its threat of prosecution the US government will have to define even letters supporting Palestinian civilians in Gaza as support for Hamas. said FPSC co-chair Jimmy Leas.

Two of the boats in the flotilla, a Norwegian boat in a Greek harbor and an Irish boat in a Turkish harbor, have been damaged in the past days, apparently due to sabotage. The U.S. boat is currently in a Greek harbor, being held up by a spurious complaint about its seaworthiness by an Israeli organization, as the Greek government is reported to be under high pressure from the Israeli and U.S. governments to prevent the flotilla’s sailing.

The International Committee of the Red Cross declared the siege of Gaza illegal, stating that “the whole of Gaza’s civilian population is being punished for acts for which they bear no responsibility. The closure therefore constitutes a collective punishment imposed in clear violation of Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law.” Amnesty International reported last week that “the humanitarian crisis in Gaza hasn’t changed significantly at all” despite changes during the past year, including Egypt’s opening of the Rafah crossing.

A National Lawyers Guild delegation to Gaza after the December 27, 2008 Israeli attack there found overwhelming evidence of violations of international law by the Israeli military, and the Guild reiterated its call for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, as well as calling for an immediate investigation of the actions of the Israeli military and prosecution of the perpetrators of these latest crimes against humanity, after the May 2010 assault on the first Freedom Flotilla to Gaza.

ACTIONS:

  • Please contact the Greek Embassy immediately and ask that the US Boat delivering letters to Gaza be granted passage out of Greek waters at (202) 939-1300.
  • Call the State Department at 202-647-4000 and demand that the U.S. State Department stop its threats and pressure against the flotilla.

Kite flying in Beit Hanoun

29 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement, Gaza

Every Tuesday morning there is a demonstration against the Occupation in Beit Hanoun, when people march into the buffer zone, demand an end to the occupation, and are met with more bullets from the occupation.  Today was different and yet the same; today we didn’t go into the buffer zone, but none the less we were still met with the bullets of the occupation.

School is out for the summer, summer camps for the children are in full swing.  In Beit Hanoun the Vittorio Arrigoni, Stay Human summer camp has been up and running for the last two weeks.  Instead of going into the buffer zone like we do most Tuesdays, today we took the children from the summer camp to fly kites.  The children had prepared beautiful kites, simple colorful geometric designs fringed with strips of paper cut from their old homework.  Kites that remind you how beautiful the simplest things in life can be.

We drove east out of Beit Hanoun, toward the wall that imprisons the people of Gaza. As we left Beit Hanoun we entered a lunar landscape of destruction, no crops, no trees,  the occasional destroyed and damaged buildings surrounded by the thistle plants that seem to grow everywhere. This is where farmers had once grown their crops.  The landscape here wasn’t always like this, the fields lining the road used to be full of trees, oranges, and olives mostly. The area used to be green, it used to support life, it used to be beautiful.  Then the Israelis destroyed all of this, with tanks and bulldozers and bombs.  Now, only the thistles remain, that and the green fields of one brave farmer who has not given up, whose fields are an oasis of green among the destruction.  The woman sitting behind me points out the aluminum propellers that the farmer has attached to his fence to scare away birds, they spin quickly in the wind, a reminder that this is someone’s land, that he is still here.

We arrive with the children on a hill  about 700 meters from the wall.  There is a restored well nearby, and a shepherd  resta under the shade of the only tree on the hill with his sheep.  In the distance you can see Sderot, built on what used to be lands of Beit Hanoun. The children stood poised, ready with their kites. As they prepared to launch their kites the Israeli guns start firing.  The wall is lined with giant Israeli gun towers operated by remote control.  One of them had started to shoot.  Shooting into the ground a couple of hundred meters from us, the shells kicked up giant clouds of dust.

What are they shooting at? Nobody knows, perhaps an unlucky shepherd, perhaps they are shooting to remind the children who the real boss is here, that the skies are not free, that they can shoot at them whenever and wherever they want.

The children launched the kites,  with the strong wind kicking them up to sail high.  The kites were amazing, red and green with white streamers fluttering in the wind.  The children had written messages on the kites: “The children of Gaza want to be free,” “No to the occupation,” “No to the siege.”

These were messages for the occupiers, for these kites are not meant merely to be seen in the distance by the soldiers who are firing guns in the distance, they are meant to infiltrate Israel, to breach the wall that imprisons Gaza, the wall that helps hide what Israel does here.  The kites soar higher and higher, the children cut the strings on the kites, the wind takes them, some crash, but some survive, some make it over the wall.

Inshallah they will find themselves caught in the branches of the children’s grandfather’s olive tree, of the orange trees which their grandmothers used to eat from.  They will be found, and their messages will be read with the freedom and the will like the universal wind that carried such messages of hope

Gaza flotilla activists: One of our ships was sabotaged

28 June 2011 | Ha’aretz, Amira Hass

One of the ships due to participate in the Gaza flotilla was deliberately tampered with while it was docked in Greece’s Piraeus port, Gaza flotilla activists told Haaretz on Monday.

The ship, due to carry Greek, Norwegian, and Swedish passengers to Gaza, was found with its propeller shaft broken, the ship’s spokesman Israeli activist Dror Feiler told Haaretz.

A scuba diver who examines the ship on a daily basis discovered Monday that the ship’s propeller shaft, which connects the transmission inside the vessel directly to the propeller, was cut off.

According to Feiler, there is no doubt that the action was a deliberate attempt at sabotage, which he believed also violated Greece’s sovereignty.

Even though the problem can be fixed, it is still unclear how long it would take, especially with Greece’s recently declared general strike on Tuesday and Wednesday.

This action adds to a series of delays that have kept the Gaza flotilla from sailing, including Greece’s determination to carry out additional non-routine examinations on several of the ships.

Earlier Monday, organizers of the Gaza flotilla accused Israel of pressuring Greece to halt the ships’ departure.

American activist Ann Wright told a news conference that Israel is mounting a “tremendous diplomatic offensive” to prevent the flotilla from setting sail.

Organizers urged the Greek government in a statement not to “become complicit in Israel’s illegal actions by succumbing to this pressure.”


Demonstration in Beit Hanoun

21 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

At 11 A.M. this morning we gathered for the weekly demonstration against the occupation in Beit Hanoun.  This demonstration was different from the other demonstrations though.  Today, a troupe of young girls were joining us.  The girls were part of the Vittorio Arrigoni summer camp that had been organized by the Forsan Al Ghad center in Beit Hanoun.  Earlier in the morning the children had learned to sing Bella Ciao and had a 1K race.  The five fastest children were awarded t shirts as prizes.  The summer camp aims not only to provide a happy refuge for the children, but also to impress upon them the importance of being active, of giving back to their communities.  The camp hopes to inspire the campers through the life of Vittorio, with his devotion to standing in solidarity with the oppressed.  When Vittorio was alive he was a regular at the demonstrations in Beit Hanoun, every Tuesday he would march into the buffer zone to protest the injustice of the occupation.

Today, we gathered, maybe 50 people, the girls holding a giant Palestinian flag over their heads, the rest of us carrying our own Palestinian flags.  Bella Ciao played over a loudspeaker, the girls sang along.  After Bella Ciao we chanted, against the occupation, for justice, in memory of Vittorio.  As always, the closer we got to the buffer zone the more tense everyone became, a jackhammer started work in the distance, everyone flinched, looked around. Everyone was worried that for some unknown reason that the Israeli’s had decided to start shoting even earlier than usual.  Two weeks ago one of the young men in the march was injured by shrapnel from an Israeli shell, since then, everyone is tenser, more worried as we approach the buffer zone.  After realizing that it was just a jackhammer, people relaxed a bit, we continued on, to the edge of the buffer zone.

Usually, we go into the buffer zone, not today.  We stopped at the edge of the buffer zone; the children looked into the distance, into the land from which their grandfathers had been expelled in 1948, at the horrible ugly wall which Israel has erected to keep them from returning to their homes.  We sang, we chanted, Sabur gave a short speech, but we did not press on into the buffer zone, it is too dangerous to take the children there.  It is enough that the Israeli soldiers saw us, that they saw the children of the men their grandfathers had expelled from their homes, and that we raised our voices against injustice.

Two fishing boats shot off Gaza coast

21 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement

At around 9am on June 21, two fishing boats were attacked by the Israeli Navy, with bullets piercing both engines, rendering them unusable.

The first boat was shot at in the motor, at the rear end and, when the 4-man crew took cover at the front of the boat, away from the shots directed at the motor, the front of the boat was fired upon.

Yaser Baker is one of the four fishermen who were aboard the first boat which was shot. “We were at around two and a half miles out to sea when they shot at our engine and it broke. We stopped the boat and all moved to the front, away from the engine so that we wouldn’t get hit. Then they shot at the front, right at us, the bullets just missing our bodies and one landed right by my leg.”

A second boat, manned by Mohammed Bakri Sabir came to assist the first, but was also attacked, both in the engine and the front of the boat, where the crew was taking cover.

Aboard the second boat were three fishermen and two of their children, aged nine and ten years old.

The boats managed to escape when around twenty other local fishing boats surrounded them and escorted them back to shore as the nine-year-old feigned an injury.  “He had to play dead,” Baker explained, “it was the only way we could get them to stop firing.”