SIEGE OF GAZA: UPDATE

This week Israeli naval commandos violently seized the latest activist ship to try and break the siege of Gaza – the ‘Jewish Boat for Gaza’, Irene.

The boat was around 20 miles from Gaza on Tuesday (28th) when it was intercepted by eight Israeli warships. Contradicting an Israeli statement that the IDF had peacefully boarded the aid ship, passengers reported that their attempts at passive resistance were met with violence, which included the tasering of one of the passengers.

The boat was then towed to the port of Ashdod, where it was met by a solidarity beach protest. All the passengers were later released.

Organised by an global coalition of Jewish organisations, the boat set sail from Cyprus carrying aid supplies and a crew of ten international and Israeli Jewish activists. The passengers included Yonatan Shapira an ex-IDF pilot who is now an activist for Combatants for Peace, Rami Elhanan, a founding member the Bereaved Families Circle of Israelis and Palestinians who lost his daughter in a Palestinian suicide bombing and Reuven Moscovitz, a holocaust survivor and founding member of the Jewish-Arab village Neve Shalom.

Yonatan Shapira said that “...the siege on Gaza is a crime, that it’s immoral, un-Jewish, and we have a moral obligation to speak out. Anyone who stays silent as this crime is being committed is an accessory to a crime.”

* For a full account of the boarding see www.jewishboattogaza.org, see also www.israeli-occupation.org