A GROUP of 40 international human rights activists will attempt to sail directly from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip next week in an effort to break Israel’s long-standing blockade of the besieged area.
The group, part of the Free Gaza Movement, is made up of 17 nationalities, including an Israeli holocaust survivor, Palestinian refugees and Tony Blair’s sister-in-law. A spokesperson for the group, Greta Berlin, said the objective was “to break the siege of Gaza”.
“Israel says it’s no longer occupying Gaza since 2005, so let the people of Gaza have the right to use their territorial waters. This is not a humanitarian mission, it’s a human rights mission,” she said.
Berlin compared the 35 mile length of the Gaza Strip coastline to the coastal distance between Los Angeles and Malibu.
“No one tells Californians not to sail or fish within their 12 nautical miles. Yet Gaza fishing boats have been shot at and fishermen killed. The fishing industry once supported 150,000 people, now it’s miniscule.
“The fishermen are scared to go out and so overfish the coastline, which is poisoned with sewage after the Israelis blew up the power plant which runs the sewage plant,” she added.
One group member, Bill Dienst, a physician, believes the de facto blockade of Gaza has brought it to the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, “with its population confined in a crowded area to which land, sea and air entry are all controlled by the Israeli military”.
He described Israeli’s tightened grip over Gaza, where imports of food, fuel and medicine were restricted since last year, as a form of “collective punishment of Gaza’s entire civilian population”.
The Free Gaza Movement has been fund-raising for two years to purchase the two boats they will use to sail to Gaza. The group are aware that Israel may try to prevent them from entering Gaza’s territorial waters, but argues that they have no legal right to do so.
If the boats succeed, then the mission will open the door to other missions, hence breaking the blockade of Gaza. If the Israeli navy prevents them from entering Gaza waters, the organisers hope the stand-off will raise international awareness about the plight of the Gaza people.
“I’m an incurable optimist. I think we’ll get there, do what we want, and then go back and do it again,” said Berlin.
“There’s more likely to be a stand-off but we’re not na?ve. Almost every one of us has visited the occupied West Bank or Gaza before. We are veterans of tear gas, sound bombs and rubber-coated steel bullets. Some of us have been beaten up too.”
Asked what they are taking with them to Gaza, Berlin replied: “Hearing aids, they’re small and portable. We asked what they needed and they said 9,000 hearing aids, mostly for children. They need them because they are exposed to the sonic boom of planes flying over daily and sound bombs.
“We are only taking around 200 because they are very expensive, so if anyone wants to donate some, please do.”
More than half the group has already arrived on the island in preparation for a four-day training seminar before the mission. They hope to set sail sometime between August 5 and 7. The group has remained tight-lipped as to the whereabouts of the boats they will use and where they will sail from, concerned that some elements might try to stop them.
Israeli newspaper Haaretz described the group as “left-wing activists”, saying Cypriot officials were concerned about the boat departing from the island’s shores but could do nothing to prevent it.
The paper also said the Israeli authorities had yet to decide how to respond to the boats’ mission.
