For More Information, please contact:
(Gaza) Caoimhe Butterly, +972 598 273 960 / sahara78@hotmail.co.uk
(Gaza) Lubna Masarwa, +972 505 633 044 / lubnna@gmail.com
(Cyprus) Ramzi Kysia , +357 99 081 767 / rrkysia@yahoo.com
(GAZA, 9 December 2008) - The Free Gaza Movement ship “Dignity”
successfully broke through the Israeli blockade for the fourth time since
August, arriving in Gaza Port at 2:45pm, Tuesday 9 December. The ship
carried one ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula, in
addition to a delegation of international academics, humanitarian and
human rights workers. Three earlier missions made landfall in Gaza in
August, October, and November through the power of non-violent direct
action and civil resistance. The Free Gaza ships are the first
international ships to reach the Gaza Strip in over 41 years.
Ewa Jasiewicz, a Free Gaza organizer, journalist, and solidarity worker,
pointed out that, “Tomorrow is International Human Rights Day, and it's
high time the world turned its rhetoric on human rights into reality. We
mounted this mission to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine and
to highlight the strangulating conditions Israel causes in besieged Gaza.
The inhumane effects of this siege threaten to stunt an entire generation
- both in terms of physical and mental growth due to malnutrition,
terrorization by bomb attacks, incursions and the use of sonic booms - but
also in terms of the generation of students which have won places at
academic institutions around the world but cannot fulfill them, and those
undermined on the ground in Gaza by a lack of food, medicine, electricity,
materials, and the peace and space to make use of them in.”
For over two years, Israel has imposed an increasingly severe blockade on
Gaza, dramatically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates among the 1.5
million human people who live in this tiny, costal region. The World Bank
recently warned that the entire banking system in Gaza may soon collapse
resulting in “serious humanitarian implications.” Already, over eighty
percent of Gazan families are dependent on international food aid in order
to feed their children.
Lubna Masarwa, another Free Gaza organizer and the current delegation’s
leader, pointed out that, “The Palestinians of Gaza don't need charity.
What they need is effective political action that changes their lives and
ends the Occupation. We can't bring electricity to Gaza on our boats. We
can't import freedom of movement or safety. But we can get into Gaza and
we are intent to keep coming. We will come again and again and again until
the world breaks its silence and we shatter this siege once and for all.”
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