About Us
Aloha Palestine is a not-for-profit company that intends to both repeat and build upon the success of the Free Gaza campaign to sail to the Gaza strip - on a regularly scheduled basis. The priority of each journey will be humanitarian. Medical aid will be shipped in, and civilians requiring urgent medical aid will be taken abroad, for treatment currently denied to them by the blockade. The focus too will be on the liberation of the hundreds of Palestinian students, who each year win places at international universities. These places are often left unfilled, as bright, young people are denied their human right to free movement and to education as a result of border closures.
Our primary target is to raise £750,000. We need your help to do this. The money raised will go towards the purchase of a high quality vessel best suited to run a ferry service. Our first ship, the UDHR (Universal Declaration of Human Rights) will have the capacity to carry 200 to 250 passengers. We have identified such a vessel. The price we are looking at, with the required modifications and maintenance is approximately £400,000. Additional funds are needed to provide for crew, running costs, insurance, and legal requirements. This fund will also provide for the passage of Palestinian students and patients.
Our intention is to provide a reliable and regular service which will be self-sustaining in the long term. To do this a proportion of travellers will pay a fare, sufficient to cover increases in operating costs. Any profits will be reinvested in the company to subsidise free travel for those in the greatest need.
Aloha Palestine will transport impartial, professionally trained international observers to Gaza who will document abuses of Palestinian human rights whilst working hard to see that these are once again respected. As an act of good faith, Aloha Palestine proposes that international observers are also provided for Israel, in the areas of Israel’s own choosing, that are worst affected by the ongoing conflict.
Before the first Free Gaza voyage left Larnaca for Gaza Port, the Cypriot government made it clear that their obligation is to ensure the adherence of all vessels and agencies to territorial and international law.
Aloha Palestine fully respects this position and is committed to the Cypriot government’s requirements for compliance with their laws.
It is a founding principal of Aloha Palestine that we will never allow weapons, of any kind, to be transported on our vessel(s).
Nor will Aloha Palestine transport any persons without lawful verification of their identity including the correct travel documents as required by foreign governments. Aloha Palestine respects the principle of non-violence without exception. On October 2nd, 2008, the 63rd President of the United Nations, H.E. Mr. Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann said:
