"Free Gaza" boats arrive in Gaza in protest against Israeli siege

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

"Free Gaza" boats arrive in Gaza in protest against Israeli siege

www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-24 02:05:21

GAZA CITY, Aug. 23 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Palestinians started whistling and screaming on Saturday afternoon when two "Free Gaza" boats with peace activists arrived at Gaza City's fishermen harbor in protest against Israeli siege.

Flags of different countries, including Turkey, Germany, France, Cyprus, Britain, Lebanon and Greece, were seen fluttering on the two boats, which set off Friday from Cyprus. Slogan "Freedom for Gaza" and "We are coming" are written on one of the boats.

While approaching Gaza beach, the two boats released 5,000 balloons of four colors of black, red, green and white, which are the colors of the Palestinian flag.

Each of the balloons bears the slogan of "Free Palestine" and a drawing of the pigeon of peace, while several Palestinian flags fluttered on the two boats.

Several peace activists, a Holocaust survival and the sister-in-law of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair are on board. The two boats also carry medical hearing aids for deaf Palestinian children.

The cheerful Palestinians warmly welcomed the "Free Gaza" boats after Israel finally decided to let them cross into Gazan water.

Several local Gaza fishing boats received the two "Free Gaza" vessels, and dozens of children and adults jumped into the two vessels to welcome the visitors.

Jamal al-Khodari, head of the Popular Committee to end the siege, got on one boat to receive the visitors. He said "Welcome to Gaza and thank you for breaking the blockade."

He told reporters, "This is a great moment to see people supporting our cause to show solidarity with us and to tell the world a message that the unfair siege imposed on the Gaza Strip should end very soon."

The visitors on the two boats are expected to be received by deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haneya as well as leaders of Hamas movement that has been ruling the Gaza Strip since mid-June last year.

Haneya also called on Arab leaders to send boats and vessels through the sea to Gaza to break the Israeli blockade, which has been imposed on the strip since Hamas took control of the enclave.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who is currently in Ramallah in the West Bank, also telephoned the visitors and praised that the visit to Gaza is a first step to end the blockade on the Palestinian territories.

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/...ent_9671702.htm

Additional coverage:

Haniyeh: Arrival of blockade-busting boats spells end of Gaza siege

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1014462.html

Seafaring activists reach Gaza shore

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/news/internati...44000&ty=ti

FREE GAZA BOATS ARRIVE IN GAZA

http://www.freegaza.org/index.php?module=l...91a&offset=

“What we’ve done shows that people can do what governments should have done. If people stand up against injustice, we can truly be the conscience of the world.”

--Jeff Halper, Ph.D.

[HLM 1]

MASHA ALLAH!!! WOOO HOOO!! THATS FEELS SO GOOD!!

heres a rap song i like so much for this event

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

[IAMX 3,055]

A good sight to see indeed.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Original thread was here in OT with just the link posted in MENA, but for some reason the original thread was merged with the link and banished to MENA. See it here:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=146567

Edited August 23, 2008 by wife_of_mahmoud

[Y's_habibitk 2]

AWESOME to see!

[desert_fox 32]

What siege????

There is probably a blockade where incoming boats are inspected to make sure they arent bringing in weapons from Iran. We do the same on the high seas, only we look for drugs.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

What siege????

There is probably a blockade where incoming boats are inspected to make sure they arent bringing in weapons from Iran. We do the same on the high seas, only we look for drugs.

"Incoming boats" are inspected ???????? Dude, NO boats have been permitted to land in Gaza since June 2007, when Israel sealed the borders. This is the first boat to manage to make it through in more than 1 year.

[Ban Hammer 13,206]

What siege????

There is probably a blockade where incoming boats are inspected to make sure they arent bringing in weapons from Iran. We do the same on the high seas, only we look for drugs.

"Incoming boats" are inspected ???????? Dude, NO boats have been permitted to land in Gaza since June 2007, when Israel sealed the borders. This is the first boat to manage to make it through in more than 1 year.

yeah, during broad daylight and in a pair of ratty azz old fishing boats too no less. some blockade.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Boats With Pro-Palestinian Activists Reach Gaza

Boats with activists protesting blockade reach Gaza with humanitarian aid

RSS A boy scout band sat in one boat banging drums and blowing horns, while another carried Gazan activists waving Palestinian flags.

Activist toss roses into the sea as part of a memorial service in memory of 14 Palestinian fishermen killed since the Israel seige of Gaza and 34 U.S sailors killed by Israel fire during an attack against the USS liberty 41 years ago in the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008.About 40 activists from 16 countries will set sail aboard the boats from the Mediterranean island for the estimated 30-hour trip to the Palestinian territory. They say they will "non-violently" resist any attempts by Israeli authorities to arrest them.(AP Photo/Philippos Christou)

(AP)"They are very brave, they are very strong, I am proud of them," said Samira Ayash, a 65-year-old retired school teacher who came to watch.

Israel, which considers Hamas a terrorist organization, has closed its trade crossings with Gaza while neighboring Egypt sealed its passenger crossing, confining the strip's 1.4 million residents.

Only a trickle of people are allowed to leave for medical care, jobs abroad and the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia.

The 70-foot Free Gaza and 60-foot Liberty left Cyprus early Friday for the journey. The 46 activists from 14 countries include an 81-year-old Catholic nun and Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of international Mideast envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

"In this media war, it was impossible for them (Israel) to win because they have no case for what they are doing to your port and to your borders," Booth said.

The activists were the first foreigners to break the blockade. Organizers said they would stay in Gaza for 24 hours, though it remained unclear how they planned to leave. Israel controls all movement in and out of Gaza.

Gaza's Hamas Prime Minister, Ismail Haniyeh welcomed the activists.

"We call for more activities to break the unfair siege imposed on our people," Haniyeh said.

Mekel, the Israeli spokesman, said Israel's decision did not mean that future deliveries would necessarily be permitted.

"This decision was about these boats. We will see what happens with any future boats," he said.

Under a June truce deal which halted a deadly cycle of bruising Palestinian rocket attacks and deadly Israel airstrikes, Israel has pledged to ease the blockade. But Palestinians say the flow of goods into Gaza remains insufficient and there has been little improvement in the quality of life.

Israel has periodically closed the cargo crossings in response to sporadic Palestinian rocket fire that violated the truce.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/WireSt...8134&page=2

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Some of the passengers...

Huwaida Arraf (Palestine)

Huwaida is a Palestinian-American, and also a citizen of Israel. She is a human rights activist and co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement. In 2007 she received her Juris Doctor from American University in Washington D.C. and she is currently teaching Human Rights and Humanitarian Law at Al Quds University in Jerusalem.

Vittorio Arrigoni (Italy)

Vittorio has wide experience in international charity work and in the battle for human rights in Europe and Eastern Europe and Africa. In 2003 Vittorio first visit to Palestine, at first in a work camp managed by IPYL in Eastern Jerusalem and later in Nablus in the Balata refugee camp. In 2006, trying to go back to Palestine, he was held in Israeli detention for a week while appealing a decision to deny him entry, then expelled from the country. In August 2006, at the request of the European Union, Vittorio attended the first free elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as an international observer. Vittorio manages one of the most popular blogs in Italy at: http://guerrillaradio.iobloggo.com

Greta Berlin (USA)

A cofounder of the Free Gaza Movement, Greta Berlin since the early 1960s has advocated for justice for the Palestinian people. She is the mother of two Palestinian/American children, whose father was born and raised in Safad, Palestine. She has been an outspoken advocate for the rights of Palestinians and has spoken and written extensively about what she has witnessed during her three trips to the Occupied West Bank. When not working with Palestinians, Greta has spent 30 years teaching engineers and scientists how to design and deliver presentations. She has been in the West Bank three times since 2003 and was wounded by Israeli gunfire in July 2003 while trying to pull down the gate in the fence at Anin, just outside of Jenin.

Lauren Booth (UK)

Lauren, a broadcaster and journalist, has regular columns in the Mail on Sunday and writes features for the Sunday Times and Femail. In 2005 Lauren travelled to the West Bank where she interviewed Mahmoud Abbas. She recently visited the region again and is campaigning for justice for Palestine.

Dr Bill Dienst (USA)

Bill is a Family and Emergency Room physician for Omak, a town in rural Washington in the northwestern United States. In 1985, after an intensive summer course in Arabic, Bill took an extra year of medical school, and spent a half year in Egypt, the West Bank and Gaza volunteering with various Palestinian healthcare organizations, initially with the Palestine Red Crescent Society headquartered in Egypt. He has been to Palestine on trips sponsored by the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme, by Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility to Israel/Palestine and with the Palestine Medical Relief Society.

Ana Maria Del Mar (Spain)

From Vilanova I La Geltru, Cataluna, Ana Maria worked 25 years as a criminal lawyer and has visited the West Bank six times. In 2005, badly injured by an Israeli soldier while at a non-violent demonstration against the building of the separation wall in Bil'in, she had her upper arm broken in two places. She was injured again in 2006 at another Bil'in demonstration when shot at close range with a plastic coated bullet. On this trip to Gaza she hopes to help ease the Gazan people's suffering and help prevent the Israeli government from persecuting innocent civilians.

Musheir El-Farra (Palestine/UK)

Originally from Khan Younis in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, Musheir is married to Dr. Wesam Al Qarra and has three children. Born in Khan Younis on 25 May 1961, he is a civil and structural engineer in the UK, from where he also coordinates support for four children's projects in the Gaza Strip: Al Asria Children's Library project in Jabalia refugee camp; "New Horizons" children's centre in Nussairat refugee camp; "Never Stop Dreaming" Children's Centre in Khan Younis, and the "Children's Mobile Library". He made a documentary film called "Voices through the Rubble" about the situation in the Gaza Strip in 2004 and is making another documentary about the visit of Al Asria children Folk dance group to Britain in 2005. In 2007 he was prevented form travelling to the Gaza Strip to visit his elderly mother before her death. He writes political and social articles in Arabic in Al Quds newspaper.

Jeff Halper (Israel)

Jeff is an Israeli professor of anthropology and coordinator of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), a non-violent Israeli peace and human rights organization that resists the Israeli occupation on the ground. In 2006, the American Friends Service Committee nominated Jeff to receive the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize with Palestinian intellectual and activist Ghassan Andoni.

Paul Larudee, Ph.D. (USA)

Paul, a cofounder of the Free Gaza Movement, is a San Francisco Bay Area activist on the issue of justice in the region known as Palestine, which includes Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem. He was born to an Iranian Presbyterian minister and his American missionary spouse in 1946 and grew up in the American Midwest.

Jenny Linnell (UK)

From the UK, Jenny has been involved in human rights work for many years.

Dr. Edith Lutz (Germany)

Edith, 59, is married with 4 grown children. A former professional nurse, Edith became a teacher. Engaged in Judaic studies, her thesis on H.Heine, she is co-initiator of Schalom5767 and initiator of "Abrahams Töchter" ('Abrahams's daughters'). She joins this voyage to help children in Gaza and highlight the core of Jewish religion: love and humanity instead of force and hatred.

Theresa McDermott (Scotland)

Theresa, 41, a postal logistics worker from Edinburgh, spent a month in Palestine in 2004.

Anne Montgomery (USA)

Anne, 81, is a Catholic nun of the religious Order of the Sacred Heart. She taught for 30 years and became a peace activist after age 50. She joined Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT) in 1995 and has worked with CPT in Palestine.

Thomas H. Nelson (USA)

Tom practiced corporate law with Oregon's largest law firm for nearly 20 years. He became involved in Palestinian issues in 1997 and co-founded Americans United for Palestinian Human Rights. When he left the firm 12 years ago, Tom first formed his own small-firm partnership and now is a solo practitioner near his home in Zigzag, Oregon, in the foothills of Mt. Hood.

Andrew Muncie (Scotland)

Andrew, 34, is from Spean Bridge in the Highlands of Scotland. He has philosophy degrees from Aberdeen and Edinburgh Universities, plays online poker for a living and has been deported twice from the West Bank by the Israeli government - once when trying to prevent a collective-punishment house demolition in the Balata refugee camp by the Israeli army and the second time whilst working with the Tel Rumeda project in Hebron.

Ken O'Keefe (Ireland/USA)

Ken, 39, grew up in California and was in the U.S. Marines in the 1991 Gulf War. He initiated P10K (www.P10K.net) in 2004 to recruit international observers to live side by side with Palestinians. He was jailed by the IDF for refusing to sign a statement agreeing not to return to Gaza and deported from Israel after 20 days in jail as a 'security threat'. Now in Hawaii, he has become a legislative representative of District 6 (Oahu) of the Reinstated Hawaiian Government (www.Hawaii-gov.net).

Haq Nawaz Qureishi (Pakistan/UK)

From Bradford, UK, Haq Nawaz, 26, is a member of the punk rock band Fun-da-mental and was in the band The Cult. He owns and runs the London record label Nation Records and is going to Gaza to take a stand against Israeli oppression.

Adam Qvist (Denmark)

Adam, 22, an essayist and co-author of the novel "City Might Fall" (2008), works on sexual and reproductive rights with the Danish Family Planning Association of Sex and with the European Youth Network for Sexual Rights: YouAct. He's visited Palestine in 2000 and 2007.

Yvonne Ridley (UK)

From County Durham, Yvonne is a TV presenter, author and activist. She first came to prominence when arrested and held for 10 days by the Taliban in Afghanistan following the 9/11 atrocity. She was released on humanitarian grounds. Founding member of Stop the Wall and the Respect Party, she has been trying to enter Gaza for many years to show solidarity with the people trapped there.

Courtney and Kathy Sheetz (USA)

Kathy, 61, is mother of a lawyer, a doctor and fellow passenger on the Free Gaza, 25-year-old videographer Courtney. Grandmother to four girls and another on the way, Kathy spent the last 12 years on grassroots and human rights organizing in Haiti. A retired nurse, Kathy brought her justice-activist daughter Courtney with her to World Social Forums in Mumbai and Port Alegre. Courtney has gone to Haiti with her since age 8, and now is completing her bachelor's degree in New York City and has made videos in Haiti and with the MST landless movement in Brazil.

Ren (Lawrence) Afif Tawil (USA)

Ren was born in San Francisco, CA (USA) in 1953, as was his mother. His father Afif George Tawil was born and raised in Jerusalem, Palestine but was visiting the US in May of 1948 and as a result could not freely return and became a 'displaced person'. He first became aware of the politics surrounding the 'Palestinian Problem' after the June War of 1967 as an 8th grader, and has maintained an interest ever since.

Mary Hughes Thompson, Canada

Mary was born in Bolton, England and immigrated to Canada, then to the United States. She is a member of the Writer's Guild in Los Angeles, a licensed pilot and a proud grandmother. She's been to the occupied West Bank six times, and this will be her seventh trip and her first to Gaza. In 2002 ,she was beaten by illegal settlers from Itamar near Yanoon, where she was helping Palestinian farmers harvest their olives.

Darlene Wallach (USA)

Darlene, 57, is an anti-zionist activist for social and environmental justice. She lives in San Jose, California (USA) and is of Jewish Eastern-European descent. Darlene spent almost two months in Palestine from May to July 2002. She visited Gaza, Ramallah and then a night at the Balata Refugee camp where she was detained and arrested with seven other internationals. All eight received deportation orders from the minister of the interior. They had witnessed brutal collective punishment of the Palestinians. Although Darlene fought the deportation order and was the first person to be let out of prison on bail, she was nonetheless eventually deported.

Donna Wallach (Israel/USA)

Donna, 57, is an anti-zionist activist working for social and environmental justice. She lives in San Jose, California (USA) and is of Eastern-European Jewish descent. She lived in occupied Palestine in the Tel Aviv area for 15 years from 1981 to 1997 and experienced, first hand, the impact of the brutal Israeli occupation on Palestinians living inside Israel as well as the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. She was in Ramallah during its siege in 2002 and spent a week in the Gaza Strip. She joins the boat crew in grief and outrage that all historical Palestine is still occupied by the apartheid state of Israel.

Kathleen Wang (USA)

Kathleen, an LA resident since 1967 raising and supporting her family, says her sympathies lie with those families who are prevented from caring for their beloved children and grandchildren due to the cruel Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories. She tends her 8 grandchildren whenever possible and delights in her new great-grandchild.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

Pics in the original thread which has been jettisoned to MENA:

http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=146567

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

banished, jettisoned?

i am sensing you're not pleased with how the organizers handled this