Tag: Gaza

To view original reports, published by the BBC, click here

Activists from the California-based Free Gaza Movement are planning to sail from Cyprus to Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade of the territory. The BBC’s Rachid Sekkai will be on board and sends his first diary entry.

About 45 people are here in the port of Larnaca in Cyprus, preparing to sail south to Gaza.

The group includes Americans, Palestinians and Israelis among the 15 nationalities represented.

President of the Free Gaza Movement, Greta Berlin explains the mission.

“This is a non-violent resistance project to challenge Israel’s siege of Gaza. Israel claims that Gaza is no longer occupied, yet Israeli forces control Gaza by land, sea and air”.

Israel imposed an economic blockade on Gaza after Hamas forces violently seized control from Fatah in June 2007. The squeeze is also aimed at stopping militants firing rockets at southern Israel.

No Israeli authorisation

The organisers’ plan is to enter Gaza from international waters without Israel’s authorisation, to recognise Palestinian control over its own borders.

Two wooden boats, Free Gaza and Liberty, will also carry a cargo of 200 hearing aids which are destined for children in Gaza whose hearing has been damaged by explosions and sonic booms.

Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of the former British Prime Minister Tony Blair who is now an international envoy to the Middle East , tells me she is travelling as both supporter and reporter.

“I dearly want to go to Gaza again to support the Palestinians and to show the world the reality of what’s going on there”.

Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein is making the journey – at the age of 83 – for humanitarian reasons.

“We intend to open the port, fish with the fishermen, and work in the schools”.

Danger

The organisers have been open about the risks involved in making such a trip.

Greta Berlin says if the first boat is stopped or attacked by Israeli forces, the passengers will use non-violent resistance, and the second vessel will follow “no matter what”.

Our pre-trip training has included lessons on how to behave if things don’t go to plan.

The departure date is a secret for our own safety. All we know so far is that the journey is meant to take 20 hours.

By Rachel Williams

To view original article, published by The Guardian on the 5th August, click here

A group of activists including Tony Blair’s sister-in-law Lauren Booth plans to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip by sailing into the Palestinian territory.

Some 46 campaigners, among them several Britons, a Holocaust survivor and an 81-year-old retired Catholic nun from the US, will make the 241-mile crossing from Cyprus in two wooden vessels at the end of the week, carrying medical supplies. The journey takes about 20 hours.

The California-based Free Gaza movement wants to open unrestricted international access to Gaza while delivering a “symbolic” shipment of 200 hearing aids and batteries for a society for deaf children and other supplies such as painkillers. Organisers say they will not pass through Israeli waters and have therefore not notified Israeli authorities of their plans.

But they are prepared for the 21-metre (70ft) Free Gaza and 18-metre Liberty to encounter resistance. The Gaza Strip’s waters are patrolled by the Israeli navy. The boats’ crews will cover as much of the journey as possible under sail to conserve fuel, so they can stay at sea as long as possible if their progress is blocked, British campaigner Hilary Smith said.

“The passengers are prepared to remain on board for weeks or longer if their passage is impeded,” she told a press conference in London. “Gaza is a virtual prison for well over a million Palestinians. It’s been under siege almost continuously for two years. Israel says it no longer occupies the Gaza Strip so the boat will not be asking permission from Israel and will not allow Israel to board the boats.”

Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza last year after Hamas took control, and allows limited supplies of food, fuel and aid into the territory. In March a coalition of eight UK human rights groups said Gazans were living through their worst humanitarian crisis since the 1967 war.

Dr Mona El Farra, director of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society in Gaza, said she knew of at least 226 patients who had died since the siege was imposed, 55 of them children, and 1,500 patients were waiting for treatment. “As a doctor there is nothing more sad for me than watching my patients dying,” she said.

Free Gaza said the boats would be inspected by an independent security service, to prove that no weapons or dangerous substances were on board. The group hopes to transport a group of young Fulbright scholars out of the territory so they can pursue their studies abroad, and return some exiled Gaza residents.

Another aim, ultimately, is to create a permanent maritime link between Cyprus and Gaza. “This is not a one-time symbolic trip,” said Israeli organiser Jeff Halper. “The idea is when we get to Gaza we have broken the siege.”

Blair is yet to visit Gaza in his role as the Quartet envoy working on Palestinian economic development. Last month a planned trip was cancelled after what his spokeswoman described as threats made against him.

By Eva Bartlett
July 21, 2008

To view original article, published by the Daily News Egypt on 21st July, click here

Ten days after setting out from Edinburgh, five days past their projected July 15 arrival, Scottish humanitarian Khalil Al Niss and his wife Linda Willis finally pulled up Sunday afternoon at the Gaza-Egypt Rafah crossing only to be denied entry to Gaza.
The Gazan side, just over 100 meters from the Egyptian gate and Israeli-constructed wall, is visible from where the couple’s van sits idle; doctors inside Gaza wait for the expected delivery of essential medical aid.

Having arrived by ferry after 11 pm, Khalil and Linda were made to wait over 24 hours at the border town of Nuweiba, where Egyptian authorities sent them around repeatedly to six different departments to fill out form after form.

Once again, the van was unloaded, Egyptian officials inspecting the contents and re-loading,satisfied the couple really was bringing in vital medicines and equipment.

“Egyptian bureaucracy is amazing. We sat, had tea,filled out forms and were told ‘okay, you’re ready to go now. Just goover to that office there and fill out one more form,’ Linda told Daily News Egypt.

Just after 1 pm Sunday they drove into Al-Arish,the pair weary but pleased to have made it to their second-lastdestination. “We’re completely exhausted. Since Wednesday morninguntil now we’ve only slept a cumulative 10 hours,” said Linda.

Lindaand Khalil have driven day and night in a van crammed with urgently-needed medical supplies and equipment to reach north-eastern Sinai’s Rafah.

They are part of a growing trend of international citizens who have decided to help end the Israeli siege on Gaza where residents are denied the most basic necessities—including vital medicines and hospital equipment parts.

Native Scot Linda and Jerusalemite Palestinian living in Scotland, Khalil, took time off from work, ferried to Belgium, and continued drivingthrough Germany, Austria, and Slovenia.

Although the team anticipated difficulties crossing borders with a van decked out in the Palestinian and Scottish flags and filled with medicines, they hadn’t expected a flat-out denial of entry. Arriving at Croatia’s border, the pair was refused entry, causing them to backtrack and alter their route, driving instead through Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria to cross via Turkey two days later.
Turkish authorities also initially turned the van away, yet eventually relented some 17 hours later,having partially unloaded and searched the van’s contents, andpermitted the van to pass. “I was surprised,” Linda explained, “because Turkey is a Muslim country and I had thought they would support and empathize with Gaza.”

Thankfully, travel got easier after Turkey.

“Syria was fantastic,” Khalil said, praising the country’s aid in expediting travel through and on to Jordan. “Syrian authorities even provided us with a security convoy, all the way to the border.”

In Jordan,the duo once again faced excessive red tape and an unwillingness to allow them passage, a reticence which again surprised them given Jordan’s large population of Palestinian refugees. After again partially unloading the van, four hours later they boarded a ferry bound for Egypt.

Greater Obstacles

Yet it turns out that the last and most trying delays have come in Egypt, first at Egypt’s border with Jordan.

They are now optimistic but wary about the likelihood of entering Gaza.

“It’s just been such a long journey. It would be fantastic if we could enter and deliver the medicine, save some lives,” Linda explained. “But Idon’t think it will be easy, I think we’ll need to get help from ourScottish Parliamentarians.”

Arriving at 2 pm at Rafah’s closed gates, Khalil and Linda were told they must first return to Al-Arish to fill out border-crossing forms with officials based there before their crossing will be considered.

The two, having been on the road for 10 days and already having faced days of bureaucracy and waiting,refused to leave the area, afraid that roadblocks might prevent their re-entry the following day. After a warning from Egyptian authorities that the area in front of the border was now a closed military area forbidden to foreigners, Linda and Khalil relented, leaving the vanparked at the side, waiting to enter and deliver its goods.

Linda,a nurse in Scotland, explained the coordination with Gaza’s doctors:“We spoke with a doctor in one of Gaza’s hospitals. He’s desperate forthe medicine and equipment we’re bringing. He’s particularly thrilled about the endotracheal tubes used in surgery that we are bringing as hesays they are re-using the only tubes they have right now.”

Thevan also carries desperately-needed medication for heart conditions and diabetes, as well as syringes, bandages, swabs, antibiotics.

An Egyptian humanitarian who traveled to the border to support theScottish effort condemned what he called the complicity of the Egyptian government in the siege. “Egypt shares in this crime,” he said. “Theofficers here denying you entry are taking orders from higher powers.”

Just a Boycott?

Linda and Khalil don’t agree that the Israeli siege is merely an ‘economic boycott.’ “Israel is trying to wipe out the younger population. If young people die, there is no future for Palestinians in the area.”

The Gaza-based Popular Committee Against the Siege (PCAS) last reported the number of victims who had died preventable deaths as a result of unattainable medical care under the siege as 212, the last two victims being an 11-month-old infant and a 44-year-old father of eight. Both died on Sunday, after being denied permits to exit Gaza for treatment.

PCAS lists 107 classes of basic medicines that are depleted in Gaza, 97 more nearing depletion, 136 halted or not functioning medical instruments,and over 1,500 patients who need to leave the Strip for medical treatment.

Despite the June 19 agreement to halt Israeli military operations, invasions, and indiscriminate shelling on Gaza, in return for an end to the launching of home-made rockets from Gaza towards Israel, Israel has not met its obligations in opening the borders with Gaza and allowing in adequate amounts of food, medical supplies, construction materials, fuel, and other vital elements denied the civilian population for well over one year.

Instead, the opening of Rafah, and the passage of goods into Gaza via other crossings, has been put on hold, used as a bargaining tool for the release of Israeli solider Gilad Shalit, even though his release was not part of the ceasefire agreement.
Khalil and Linda remain hopeful that they will enter and bear witness, deliver aid and a message: the siege is inhumane, and if the international political community won’t do anything to end it, civilians will.

Their success may be echoed by the efforts of a team of over 50internationals, including Israelis, who aim to reach Gaza’s coast by water.

Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein, an organizer of the Free Gaza boat movement, hopes like Linda and Khalil, to ‘remind the world that we will not stand by and watch 1.5 million people suffer death by starvation and disease.’

Linda and Khalil’s journey may be tracked by visiting www.gaza.tk , www.scottishpsc.org.uk/ and www.gphrc.org/main.html