A ship is Sailing on August 5, 2008 to Break the Siege of Gaza and End Occupation

Web: www.gazatoday.blogspot.com 

Around 60 Palestinians, Israelis and Internationals from 15 countries will sail to Gaza during the sixty-year anniversary of the Nakba – the forcible expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their lands to create Israel –to challenge Israeli control over the open-air prison called Gaza.

Among the crew are a Holocaust survivor and a survivor of the Palestinian Nakba. They sail with the common bond of focusing the world's attention on the growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza and its collapsing economy which are direct results of Israel's ongoing occupation and continuing control over Gaza's air space and territorial waters.
 
"The siege of Gaza ends only when Palestinians are accorded the basic fundamental human rights of citizens throughout the free world," says UK passenger, Musheir El-Farra who knows the irreparable human cost of current Israeli government policies. "My family and beloved ones in Gaza have been under siege for over two years now; living without their most basic human rights on their own land.
 
In the words of Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein "What an opportunity to make a change for good, both for Palestinians and Israelis. We intend to open the port, fish with the fishermen, help in the clinics, and work in the schools. But we also intend to remind the world that we will not stand by and watch 1.5 million people suffer death by starvation and disease".
 
A press conference will be held in central London on Monday the 4th August 2008 at 11am. Please contact us for more information about the Gaza boat and the conference.

Free Gaza Movement is  a based EU peace activists group based in Europe. It aims at coming to Gaza to lift the siege by the next August. Popular Committee Against Siege (PCAS) and other Palestinian groups are receiving them. There will be a massive media coverage and public participation.

The historic illegal appropriation of Palestinian land, home and heritage is at the heart of the Middle East conflict. It has given rise to the largest ongoing refugee population in the world. It paved the way for subsequent land theft in 1967, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing that has squeezed Palestinians in the West Bank into ghettos and bantustans surrounded by 27-foot walls, sniper towers, and military guards. It has created the open-air prison of Gaza with an impoverished and overcrowded population of 1.4 million inhabitants.
This tragic event has dispossessed and disinherited Palestinians all over the world; and a destitute population of refugees with only their memories of Palestine, crumbling property deeds, and an undaunted will to return.

Mission Statement

We want to break the siege of Gaza. We want to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy and end its support for continued Israeli occupation. We want to uphold Palestine's right to welcome internationals as visitors, human rights observers, humanitarian aid workers, journalists, or otherwise.

Who are we?
We are these human rights observers, aid workers, and journalists. We have years of experience volunteering in Gaza and the West Bank at the invitation of Palestinians. But now, because of the increasing stranglehold of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine, many of us find it almost impossible to enter Gaza, and an increasing number have been refused entry to Israel and the West Bank as well. Despite the great need for our work, the Israeli Government will not allow us in to do it.

Sameh A. Habeeb
Freelance Journalist based in Gaza, Palestine
Mob: 00972599306096
E-mail: Sam_hab@hotmail.com
Sameh.habeeb@gmail.com
Web: www.gazatoday.blogspot.com