Going into Gaza by Adie Mormech
Article published: Thursday, June 18th 2009
I’m painting and working on the boats that will hopefully take us into the Gaza Strip.
The Free Gaza movement has got boats through the Israeli blockade 5 times before, although a recent attempt last December saw the boats shot at and halted.
Given that Gaza, one of the most densely populated places on the planet has 1.5 million people penned in by Israeli forces over land and air, the Gaza Hope Fleet aims to beat the siege and bring in over thirty people by sea including Documentary makers, Medical Aides, a Nobel Laureate, Palestinians to be reunited with families and a range of other activists and volunteers. We’re preparing the two boats, the ‘Free Gaza’ and the ‘Spirit’ and spending so much time on the boats has been quite an education and will be even more so once we set sail. We’re expecting to depart on the 25th of June and it will take 30 hours to reach Gaza. Greta one of the founders from the US has recently made the following video about the the Free Gaza movement and the boats in action:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcWTHkyrZ4g
Gaza’s 1.5 million inhabitants were enduring their worst conditions for over 40 years aid agencies said last year, with 80 percent of the population dependent on food aid, due directly to the Israeli blockade depriving normal food, infrastructure and medical supplies. As life became increasingly harder with death and malnutrition, Israel then launched an air and ground attack in late December and early January that killed a further 1300 people, over 300 kids. Many thousands more were injured and the vast majority of the casualties were civilians. Over 4,100 houses were destroyed and a further 17,000 seriously damaged. 50,000 people are now homeless, tens of thousands lacking power, water and sanitation, as well as food and medical treatment. Of the 13 Israelis killed, 10 were IDF troops taking part in the assault. See this BBC report during the bombing:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7812547.stm.
All this could not happen if the United States did not give an unprecedented 6 billion dollars of aid to Israel annually – and the weapons supplies from other allies such as Britain have gradually increased in recent years.
As materials for reconstruction have been refused entry into Gaza by the Israeli blockade, many families have for months continued to live in the rubble or in makeshift tents. The boats will be bringing some essential building materials and medical supplies and from my part I’ll be taking lots of English learning books from the bookstall as part of the ‘Right to Read’ campaign. The universities in Gaza which I’ll be visiting were bombed and according to UNWRA, Israel’s blockade is also preventing ink, paper and other learning materials from entering into Gaza. Here’s a guardian report on how everything has remained in devastation since January:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/jun/08/gaza-reconstruction-refugees
When I hopefully get into Gaza, I’ll be sending a few posts about what I find there. If you would like to help further, with the Free Gaza movement or any other, then get back to me or goto to the free gaza website: http://www.facebook.com/l/;www.freegaza.org. We also still need more funding and we need to get the word out!
Video of us the intrepid crew on the Free Gaza boat
Video featuring crew members Greta Berlin, Captain Dennis, First Mate Derek and Chief Scrubber Adie:
http://www.facebook.com/l/;http://www.youtube.com/gazafriends
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