THE GAZA boat trip planned by a group of peace activists to end the blockade of Gaza has been delayed by a mechanical fault on one of the boats.
The two boats, the Free Gaza and Liberty are currently on their way to Crete, after which they will arrive in Cyprus to pick up around 40 peace activists and media representatives before making the one-day voyage to Gaza. The trip has been pushed back to next week, due to the technical hiccup.
The Free Gaza Movement (FGM) says the objective of their mission is to “break the blockade of Gaza” by Israeli forces, which maintain tight control over air, land and sea routes in and out of Gaza.
The FGM argues Gaza has been turned into an “open-air prison” for 1.4 million Gazans. People are dying from lack of access to medical facilities, which are held up on the borders, while the ability to fish or trade in agricultural products is almost non-existent due to Israel’s blockade, say the Movement’s organisers.
The FGM has been raising funds for around two years to make the trip. A group of academics, pensioners, students and human rights activists planning to make the trip are currently waiting for the boats in Cyprus.
They repeatedly insist their intentions are non-violent, describing the mission as a peaceful effort to provide access to the outside world for Gazans who are suffering “collective punishment” at the hands of Israel.
So far, the group has remained cagey as to the exact whereabouts of the boats, fearing sabotage from elements that do not wish to see the boats reach their destination.
In 1988, a similar symbolic voyage to Haifa, arranged by the PLO, was stopped after a mine was placed on the ship’s hull while docked in Limassol port. A day earlier, three PLO officials, believed to be the organisers, were also killed in a car bomb on the Limassol waterfront.
This trip has had its own drama. One of the FGM’s fund-raisers Riad Hamad, a school teacher, committed suicide last April in Texas. Two months earlier, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Inland Revenue Service (IRS) raided his home and seized 40 boxes in connection with a money laundering investigation. No charge was ever filed before his death.
One of the ‘Free Gaza’ organisers, Greta Berlin, said Hamad worried a lot about the effects of the US government investigation on his children.
“People don’t realise this so much in Europe, but it is horrific in the US to be a Palestinian or a supporter of Palestine,” she said.
The group has been using the extra days in wait to go through potential scenarios that could play out next week.
“We don’t underestimate Israel at all, and have done a lot of ‘what ifs’ the last few days. We’ve discussed how to react if they blow up the boat, board us, arrest us, shoot us, hire somebody in Gaza to harm us, tow us or stop us,” said Berlin.
“We’ve been looking at what happens if they say the waters are mined, or they have robot submarines in the area. We can give them our route ahead of time. Our safety is in their hands. They have the guns, weapons, mines and robot submarines. All we are carrying is 200 hearing aids and 5,000 balloons. There is not a single militant among us,” she added.
The group has sought to stress the peaceful, non-violent nature of the mission, following a number of reports that claim the boats will be carrying weapons to Hamas.
One left-of-centre journalist in the popular Israeli media outlet, Maariv, accused supporters of the FGM of “participating in the Ship of Hate”. The author, Ben-Dror Yemini, seemed to connect the provision of food, access to trade and medical aid for the 1.4 million Palestinians in Gaza with support for Hamas.
In reference to the recent killings of Fatah members by Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Yemini was translated as saying: “Once again the global Left is aligning with the kingdom of evil. These inject gas into their compatriots’ rectum. And the forces of progress respond with a ship that will come to aid their regime.”
Meanwhile, the FGM has launched a song contest for the best version of the trip’s theme tune, titled “Free Gaza”. The living-room song production is available on YouTube by typing in the words, “Free Gaza Song Contest”.
