(LARNACA, 8 December 2008) – The Free Gaza Movement announces that it sent a delegation from Cyprus to Gaza aboard their blockade-busting ship, the Dignity, last night, at 11.30pm, Monday, 8 December, due to arrive in Gaza at 3 pm Tuesday 9th December.

Free Gaza Movement has successfully challenged the siege on three previous occasions this year, landing missions in Gaza in August, October, and November. Free Gaza ships are the first to dock in Gaza Port in over 41 years.

Israel maintains absolute control over Gaza’s borders and airspace, and has imposed an increasingly brutal blockade on its 1.5 million civilians for over two years, drastically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates. Over 700 students are currently trapped in Gaza, while Israel denies their right to attend universities abroad.

In a statement released by Drs. Jonathan Rosenhead and Mike Cushman, of the London School of Economics, the academics said they were pleased to be traveling to Gaza aboard the Dignity, and that, “This siege is an affront to any idea of academic freedom or human rights. We, working for a British university, have the freedom to teach and study, this must be a universal right, not at the discretion of an occupying power. How can anyone justify preventing young people from fulfilling their potential and learning how to serve their community more fully?”

In addition to the British academics, this fourth voyage includes a British surgeon traveling to Gaza to volunteer in local hospitals for the next several weeks, as well as international human rights workers and journalists. The ship will also be carrying in one ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula. In recent days, Israel has forcibly intervened to prevent other such missions from reaching Gaza.

Lubna Masarwa, one of the Free Gaza organizers, stated that, “Gaza doesn’t need charity. What Gaza needs is sustained political action aimed at overcoming this vicious siege. We have no intention of turning around, and so we’re confident that we will reach Gaza. We are unarmed civilians carrying desperately needed supplies to other unarmed civilians. It would be obscene for Israel to use violence to stop us.”

The passengers on board the Dignity include:

 British academics on a fact-finding mission to document the devastating affects Israel’s siege has had on the educational sector in Gaza

 A British surgeon travelling to Gaza to volunteer in local hospitals for the next several weeks

 A Palestinian man who has been denied the right to return to his family in Gaza

 International human rights workers

 International journalists from Al-Jazeera TV and McClatchy Newspapers

For More Information, please contact:
(Gaza) Caoimhe Butterly, +972 598 273 960
(Cyprus/Gaza) Lubna Masarwa, +972 505 633 044
(Cyprus) Ramzi Kysia , +357 99 081 767

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article10015.shtml

They are the ONLY states in the world that deny international media and humanitarian aid workers access.

Allow me to share a story i spun in the Chapter: Brother Harold

from “KEEP HOPE ALIVE”

Harold lifted his almost empty pouch of Crown Royal and exclaimed, “Let’s toast the man, and then I’ll tell you what my daddy told me when I was a kid, when my brothers and I would get out of hand.

“He’d say, ‘boys, you all are going the way of Cain and Abel, and you’d better quit. For one of those boys was filled with so much hatred and jealousy that he killed the other.’

“Then my old man would be on a roll, and he’d tell us about Sarah, Abraham’s wife. And we loved to hear that part, so we’d quit our fight. You see, although Sarah was already menopaused, she still desired a child. God had even shared a laugh with her about it coming true, but just like a woman, she took the matter into her own hands, and refused to wait for the Lord to deliver.

“So old Sarah decided to give her maidservant to her old man, and that chick and Abraham made a kid. Everything was fine when Ishmael arrived, but only for a very short while.

“Now, although Sarah was a dried-up old crone, she, too, birthed a son, and named him after the laughter she had shared with God, but called the kid Isaac. Sarah had gotten very territorial and demanded Abraham cast out his beloved first son with his mama Haggar, into the barren wilderness, and Abraham did it!

“But, as God always hears the cries of mothers and sons, he promised to make a great nation from Ishmael’s descendants, too. And thus, the Arab nation was born.

“By the sixth century before Christ, the conflicts in the land were already old news, and Jeremiah warned the people that all God could see was violence and destruction in the city. Sickness and wounds were all around. And then my old man would get tears in his eyes and softly recite,

‘for every misunderstanding, every condemning thought, every negative vibration, every tear torn from a heart, every time one grabbed and wouldn’t let go, and they only did it because they did not know. The Divine is within all creation and within all women and men.

‘And every tiny kindness you have ever done, every gentle word spoken, every time you held your tongue, every positive thought, every smile freely given, every helping hand that opens, helps bring in the kingdom. And the kingdom comes from above, and it comes from within. Imagine a kingdom of sisterhood of all creatures and all men.’”

Disappointing to read the comments by one person who doesn’t get the point.

Israel must leave the occupied territories and stopping engaging in oppression of the Palestinian people!

Darlene’s twin sister writes here on ‘The Open-Air Prison Called Gaza Strip’.

Another brave woman.

You might as well tell us how Israel released 200ish Palestinian prisoners recently. That out-of-context statistic works well within the context of your mindset towards the conflict. Israel has so many Palestinians to release so a 200 sounds a lot only when you forget there are 10,000ish Palestinians in jail.

Likewise, there are plenty of injured/sick Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank so whatever number Jaime pulls up is going to seem impressive but only OUT OF CONTEXT.

Notice when she/he is countered, she/he begs the question: What responsibility does Israel have to the Palestinians in Gaza? Well, they don’t – because Gaza (as well as the West Bank) belong to Palestine. Unfortunately, Israel is illegally occupying and colonizing Palestinian land. So while there may be no official responsibility – it is a MORAL responsibility. Israel and Palestine are intertwined.

If you illegally occupy a country, kill it’s children 10 to 1, kill it’s civilians 5 to 1, demolish it’s civilians’ homes, impose curfews, impose ethnocentric rules and regulations, etc. etc. etc., then you might as well take responsibility to the misery you cause.

Palestinians need to organize and bring down every wall and settlement. Every settler, every soldier = have NO right to be in Gaza or the West Bank.

No, I think the US owes it to them since it’s their money going to the occupiers. Making Israel pay is like asking the assassin you hired to pay for coffins, but there are those that understandably feel it’s Israel wagging the dog so yeah, I suppose in that light they do owe the people they are starving, maiming and murdering. Maybe the Israelis should put that begging bowl away as you suggested others should?

I think it is wise to suppose that there will ALWAYS be some violence, in the Middle East and in any part of the world. It has to be judged RELATIVELY. What Israel does to Palestine is many times worse than what Palestine does to Israel.

As another example of violence in the world: Various people and agents of the United States wrongfully inflict violence upon various other people. But it would be wrong to collectively punish the whole population of the United States for that.

The United States should STOP SUPPLYING WEAPONS to Israel while Israel is degrading all of Palestine. Jaime mentions Israeli medical aid to some Palestinians. I say, judge RELATIVELY. Israel systematically degrades Palestine as a whole.

I recently asked a friend what he thought of what’s happening in the Middle East. In his reply, he said that Muslims would just kill each other anyway because that’s how their religion is. I disagree! I say Muslims and Islam are no worse than Jews, Judaism, Christians, and Christianity. People who talk about Muslims the way he does haven’t gotten to know any Muslims. In the world today the worst purveyor of violence, terrorism, and land-grabbing is the United States, with its mostly “Christian” ethnicity, and the second worst is Israel, with its mostly “Jewish” ethnicity. For such people to put blame on Islam is worse than ignorance, it’s arrogance and disdain for the “other” — disdain for groups different from one’s own, not for any good reason, but basically because they are different.

I heard that the United Nations calls for an end to the illegal Israeli settlements, and the United Nations says the wall that Israel builds on Palestinian land is illegal and should be removed. I agree. But Israel acts according to what it CAN do and what it CAN get away with, just as it has done historically. The Israeli God that I’ve been reading about in the Bible is a lot more about Power than about Right.

So, why doesn’t Israel respect the United Nations opinions? I believe it is because Israel as a nation, in its approach to land and nations and the world, doesn’t respect Right, it only respects Might. So it takes more and more of Palestine by hook and by crook, by force and by unfair legalities, and by making life miserable for most Palestinians, not person-to-person but as a general approach nationally, to degrade Palestinians so that eventually there will be no Palestine, and Israel will have taken over all of it. Just as in the Bible, Israel will then go on to keep taking more and more of its neighbors’ land. Considering the Old Testament as the Israeli holy book, how can we expect anything different from Israel? Look at the character of the God described in the Old Testament (from Genesis to Jeremiah 4 at least).

– John L.

IMAGINE when the secular state of Israel honors their own words and all democracies honor and uphold the UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS:

http://www.wearewideawake.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107&Itemid=1

To answer your question,
I think you just did—they get medical treatment. Now if the question is how many NEED medical treatment, I don’t know…do you? Not much press over there at the moment, so I only hear about the occasional leaked story of people dying from having no medical supplies and being held up in lines at the freedom wall

Maybe the US should cut out the middle man when it comes to providing medical treatment to Palestinians. 14,000 doesn’t sound very efficient…I’m sure a billion or so in redirected aid would help?

Good to see you back! where ya been, mate? I had a feeling you were here when I saw the number of responses to this article

That’s all!

i don’t care the uniform, or how noble one thinks their cause

ANY TIME AN INNOCENT is caught in the X-FIRE they are terrorized!

Reality is that Israel’s 41 years of military occupation of the indigenous people of that land is at the VERY ROOT of WHY there are suicide/homicide bombers, etc,

PLEASE WAKE UP to reality with The Facts:

http://ifamericansknew.org/

http://ifamericansknew.org/

Darlene told me that when ISM around, the fishermen get to fish out further and the catch is better,

The IOF are the only one’s who are VIOLENT.

Occupation robs the humanity out of the occupiers,

The occupied stay strong with international support and NONVIOLENCE is the way to change hearts and minds.

I concur fully with Eileen and Tree in what they say about these brave people. I have seensome of the many videos of the IDF gunships’ cruel antics with these fishermen and their boats and you can only watch what they do with a horrified silent anger.