Da: Andrea FreeGaza Web
Oggetto: [GazaFriends] FreeGaza Newsletter May 2009
Data: 30 maggio 2009 1:46:41 GMT+02:00
A: gazafriends
This newsletter is also available in French, German, Italian, Spanish,
Arabic and Hebrew at:
http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/newsletter/885-freegaza-newsletter-may-2009
just follow the link and choose your language on the top right corner.
—–>Introduction
The Free Gaza Movement [http://www.freegaza.org] is a human activist
group which, in August 2008, docked the first international boats in
Gaza after 41 years of isolation. We are now preparing a new
expedition to support the Gaza population, which is suffering because
of the continued Israeli siege.
The current situation in Gaza is reported in the video series
available in English, French and Italian on this page:
http://freegaza.org/en/links-a-gaza-info/videos
—–>Support the Free Gaza Movement
We’re turning to you today, because we need your help now more than
ever. Please visit our donate page [http://freegaza.org/en/donate] for
more information on how you can help ensure our continuing missions to
Palestine, also US tax deductible donations are now possible
[http://freegaza.org/en/usa-donations]. Please give generously.
We also need support in translating the news to many languages, we now
currently support Arabic, French, German, Italian, Spanish and Hebrew.
The translators team is doing a great work but it is very busy and
more people would really help,
moreover, we would like to translate newsletters and the most
important articles also to Greek and Portuguese. For these and if you
would like to suggest more languages or help with the website, just
contact us [http://www.freegaza.org/fgm-weboffice].
—–>Ewa Jasiewicz and Caoimhe Butterly speaking tour in Europe
Ewa and Caoimhe, our two Free Gaza coordinators who have been working
on the ground in Gaza, are currently on a speaking tour, in Europe,
raising awareness of the current situation in Gaza and providing eye
witness accounts of the December – January massacres. As well as
bearing witness to the suffering in Gaza, they are making links with
many different groups who are interested in making direct solidarity
links with groups inside Gaza. These groups include schools, ambulance
workers, people involved in education and other trade unionists.
Ewa and Caoimhe hope to provide a `bridge’ to support a direct link
between schools, paramedics, universities and others, which they will
help to set up on their return to Gaza next month. They both report
that one of the important things is to break down the sense of acute
isolation that so many Gazans feel – and solidarity links are a
concrete way of challenging the siege of Gaza. One of the
presentations by Caoimhe is on our website
[http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/56-news/879-eye-witness-gaza-2009]
—–>Reflections on the loss of the DIGNITY by Ramzi Kysia
On the morning of May 4th, 2009, the Free Gaza Movement’s flagship –
the DIGNITY – was lost outside Larnaca port. During a storm in Cyprus,
she was thrown against the marina seawall, opening up a large hole on
her starboard stern side. While attempting to tow her to safety, she
took on more water than her bilge pumps could handle, and she went
down at sea.
Derek Graham, Free Gaza organizer and first mate aboard the DIGNITY,
worked hard to save her but, in the end, Mother Nature was more
powerful. “All I could do was watch,” Derek remarked after the loss,
“She was a strong boat, and fought hard. She did what was asked of
her. As I watched she groaned and cried and struggled to stay afloat.
With one last, loud cry, the wheelhouse collapsed and the fly-bridge
broke from the main structure – then it went quiet”.
For six months the DIGNITY withstood threats and intimidation from one
of the world’s most powerful military states. She stood up under a
deliberate attempt to sink her in December, when an Israeli gunboat
rammed her port side three times as she was attempting to deliver
doctors and emergency medical aid to a besieged and war-devastated
Gaza.
She stood up as she crossed the Mediterranean to reach Gaza on four
separate occasions, bringing in tons of desperately needed supplies,
as well as dozens of human rights workers, doctors, journalists, and
parliamentarians.
The DIGNITY was more than just wood and steel. For those of us who
loved her, traveled on her, and fussed over her – she was truly
something special. She was the joy that internationals and
Palestinians could finally enter and exit Gaza, free from Israeli
control and intimidation. Her voyages were a shout and a hope, to an
indifferent world, that a besieged Gaza would one day be open to
visitors and commerce – just like any other port on the Mediterranean.
As Greta Berlin, co-founder of the Free Gaza Movement said when she
was lost, “To the end, the DIGNITY was a boat that lived up to her
name.”
She will be sorely missed.
—–>Current situation in Gaza by Vittorio Arrigoni
Here in Gaza “lead is not casting” anymore, but it has been shot
against us regularly.
Rafah tunnels, (the only way to get food and necessities for civilian
people, prisoner of a ruthless siege), are being bombed from time to
time, burying Palestinian miners just as farmers are daily shot at by
snipers while working on their own lands close to borderline.
Early in the morning, here, in front of the seaport, I’ve been
awakened by artillery shots by Israeli navy firing against rudimentary
Palestinian fishermen boats to prevent them moving more than a few
miles off their own coastline.
There are really just little fish left close to the Gaza coastline,
there is only barren water there due to pollution and over
exploitation. During the past two months, a dozen fishermen have been
kidnapped, taken to Israel and their boats have been confiscated,
because they move farther than 2.5 Km from the coast.
If at sea fishing, there is a high level of risk to be killed while
searching for food; also on land, surviving is not easy at all: Israel
is increasingly striking out in East Khan Younis. And in case shooting
against unarmed civilians is not enough, Israeli forces are playing
pyromania: overrunning borders and setting fire to Palestinian fields,
in particular barley and grain fields, whose harvesting is the only
income for hundreds of families.
During the last massacre 21 000 civilian buildings have been destroyed
or damaged by Israeli bombings, 100 000 Palestinians are homeless, a
situation which recalls the Nakba of 1948.
The reconstruction does not even have a chance, because it is
forbidden to import cement and building materials. Israeli officers
say these vitally-needed supplies would be used to build tunnels to
Rafah in spite of the obvious desire to rebuild and make a life for
their children.
Similarly, most goods cannot be imported in Gaza, Israel approved a
list of about 40 type of goods, a huge decrease from the 3000-4000
allowed before the siege begun.
At the corners of the streets it is usual to see many children beg for
some change selling parsley or mint, dressed in dirty rags. Who knows
what happened to their families in the massacres?
Sentenced to a severe punishment for the crime of not wanting to
succumb to a better-armed oppressor, Palestinians have resisted for 61
years, relegated to isolationism by the world politics.
Looking beyond the horizon, here at the port, I look forward to the
civil society that fights for for peace and human rights, and seek to
bring here all its empathy through a courageous FLOTILLA.
Resist and stay human.
Another contribution on the situation in Gaza by Natalie Abou Shakra
is available on the website:
http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/56-news/884-current-situation-in-gaza
—–>HOPE FLEET by Greta Berlin
When the Dignity sank, many supporters were dismayed that our flagship
might have sunk our hopes to continue our voyages to Gaza. Two days
before the boat cried out and slipped into the waters, two Israelis
had stopped our first mate, Derek Graham, and said they wanted to see
the Dignity sunk. Many of you have written to us, convinced that the
“Sinking of the Dignity” was deliberate, an act by a people terrified
that our small acts of resistance were beginning to turn the tide of
public opinion against Israeli aggression.
None of us working on the ground in Cyprus can say for certain what
happened, except that the boat is gone. But all of us working on this
project for the past three years will promise that we will not stop
the boats to Gaza.
We may be delayed until we find a replacement, but we will not be
deterred. Right now, the projects group is looking at dates in June
for the two boats we already own, along with a possible passenger or
cargo boat if we can buy one in time. Although we are not ready to
announce a date yet, we believe that within the next week, we will be
able to.
What does this date depend on? How many can come? Who are the
high-profile people willing to go on the boats that will not be as
comfortable as the Dignity but are definitely sea-worthy? And,
finally, what kind of statement do we want to make to the world that
has turned its back on the Palestinians, ashamed to stand up for the
last victims of WW II? These are all questions that we will continue
to answer over the summer.
***FreeGaza newsletter [http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/newsletter]
