Activists vow trips to Gaza will continue
Aid to territory defies Israeli Navy blockade
NICOSIA, Cyprus - Pro-Palestinian activists vowed yesterday to continue to defy an Israeli Navy blockade around Gaza, a day after Israel seized their boat and detained 21 people bringing aid to the territory.
Israel boarded a small ferry carrying activists to Gaza on Tuesday, intercepting the vessel in Gaza’s Israeli-controlled coastal waters. Those detained included an Irish peace laureate, a former member of the US Congress, and charity workers from Bahrain.
The activists, called the Free Gaza Movement, first started sending aid directly into Gaza in August 2008, but had been intercepted by the Israeli Navy on two previous occasions.
The group would continue regardless of interceptions, said spokeswoman Greta Berlin.
“We are definitely going to go even if we have to paddle across,’’ she told journalists in Cyprus.
The activists had set off from Cyprus with humanitarian aid for Palestinians in Gaza, a territory ruled by Hamas Islamists. Israel tightened controls over Gaza, a sliver of territory of 1.5 million people, after Hamas took control there in 2007.
International calls for an end to the blockade have mounted after a 22-day Israeli offensive last December and January deepened hardship in the territory. Israel launched the military operation with the declared aim of ending crossborder rocket attacks.
Activists said they would continue to try to get aid directly to Gaza as long as Israeli restrictions are in place. Israel said it is allowing aid to get through.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said this week that stringent restrictions imposed by Israel are crippling reconstruction efforts.
“It is absolutely appalling how our small ships and a rag-tag band of activists has become the international conscience of what is happening there,’’ said activist Ramzi Kyzia. “We are going to go, again and again.’’
Meanwhile, the blockade of Gaza is causing severe humanitarian hardship and the situation is getting worse every day, the head of the UN aid agency for Palestinian refugees warned yesterday.
Egypt opens the crossing periodically. Israel allows in food and humanitarian aid, but does not permit raw materials that the Gaza Strip needs to repair damage from Israel’s winter war on Hamas, meant to stop militant rocket fire on Israeli towns.
“Because there’s been no change and the borders are not open, things are deteriorating,’’ said Karen Koning AbuZayd, commissioner general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
“People are in worse and worse condition every day, especially those who were affected by the conflict in late December and in January.’’
AbuZayd, speaking in Vienna, said many people are still living in the rubble are homes. Recently, a shipment of shampoo bottles had to be sent back because they also contained conditioner - an item that was not on the list of allowed goods, AbuZayd said. “These sorts of things defy logic and rationality.’’
Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, rejected AbuZayd’s comments.
“What truly defies logic and rationality is the stubborn insistence of UNRWA to turn their back on reality by repeatedly refusing to call things by their real name and indicate the heavy responsibility of Hamas’s belligerence in bringing about the current situation,’’ he said. “Thus UNRWA will only ensure that it will persist in doing a great disservice to the cause they are supposed to serve.’’
Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. 