| Al Bawaba, Jan 9, 2010 | |||||||||
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 Aid convoys bound for the Gaza Strip will now be banned from passing through Egyptian soil after activists this week clashed with police, Egypt’s foreign minister said in remarks published on Saturday. Ahmed Abul Gheit told Al-Ahram newspaper that members of one convoy led by British MP George Galloway committed “criminal” acts on Egyptian soil on their way to the Palestinian enclave.
“Egypt will no longer allow convoys, regardless of their origin or who is organising them, from crossing its territory,” Abul Gheit said. “Members of the (Viva Palestina) convoy committed hostile acts, even criminal ones, on Egyptian territory,” the foreign minister added. Abul Gheit was speaking from Washington where he is on a visit to discuss the Middle East peace process. He said that, from now on aid, to the Strip must be handed over to the Red Crescent at El-Arish who will turn it over to the Palestinian chapter of the relief organisation in Gaza. © 2010 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com) |
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Posts Tagged ‘Viva Palestina!’
Egypt: No more aid convoys to Gaza Strip
January 11, 2010
One Year After Israeli Invasion of Gaza, World Leaders Fail to Act but Global Citizens Step Forward
December 28, 2009by Medea Benjamin, CommonDreams.org, Dec 27, 2009
One year ago, the brutal Israeli 22-day invasion of the Gaza Strip shocked the world, leaving some 1,400 people dead, thousands more wounded, as well as hospitals, schools, prisons, UN facilities, factories, agricultural processing plants and some 20,000 homes damaged or destroyed. As we mark the one-year anniversary of the invasion, the plight of the people of Gaza continues unabated:
- Despite pledges of money for reconstruction, Israel refuses to allow in the machinery necessary to clear the rubble or the materials needed to rebuild–banning cement, gravel, wood, pipes, glass, steel bars, aluminum and tar. Many who were made homeless during the bombing are still living in tents amidst the onset of another cold winter. Desperate, some are reverting to the ancient techniques of building homes made of mud.
- Trade depends on an elaborate system of illicit and dangerous tunnels between Egypt and Gaza. The goods brought in are expensive, but they are the lifeline for the 1.5 million people who live under siege. The Israelis periodically bomb the tunnels, the Egyptians inject them with gas, and now, with U.S. technology and funds, Egypt is building a wall descending 70 feet into the ground to seal up the only trade route the inhabitants of Gaza have with the outside world.
- Recent restrictions on the transfer of gas resources into Gaza have left many without adequate means to cook or provide heating as winter deepens.The Ministry of Health says that several hospitals lack the gas supplies to provide adequate hygiene for their patients. Similar restrictions on the movement of industrial fuel into the Strip have forced Gaza’s sole power plant to drastically limit the amount of electricity.
- Water and sewage infrastructure has reached a crisis point, with tons of raw sewage pumped daily into the Mediterranean.Amnesty International recently deemed that 90 to 95 person of the water available to Gaza’s inhabitants was unfit for human consumption, and 60 per cent of the Gaza Strip’s residents have only irregular access to water. Repairs to Gaza’s overburdened sewage and water networks are largely prevented by the blockade.
- The once-steady flow abroad of many hundreds of students a year, often to pursue postgraduate studies in Western universities, has slowed to a trickle. Israel is not even allowing students from Gaza to study in the West Bank.
- Attempts at hold Israel accountable for crimes committed during the invasion have been thwarted. The September 2009 Goldstone Report recommended that if Israel and Hamas did not investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes, the case should be referred to the International Criminal Court. But US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice, and the U.S. Congress, condemned the report, assuring that it will not be brought before the U.N. Security Council.
In a report released on December 22 called Failing Gaza: No rebuilding, no recovery, no more excuses, a group of 16 humanitarian organizations detailed the ongoing suffering of Gaza’s 1.5 million people from Israel’s invasion and ongoing siege. “It is not only Israel that has failed the people of Gaza with a blockade that punishes everybody living there for the acts of a few,” said Jeremy Hobbs, Oxfam International Executive Director. “World powers have also failed and even betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens.”
While international governments and UN institutions have failed their obligations, global citizens and civil society organizations have stepped forward. The past year has seen the mushrooming of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign aimed at Israel. South African dockworkers refused to offload an Israeli ZIM Lines ship in February; the British bank BlackRock divested from Lev Leviev settlement projects on the occupied Palestinian territory; the Norwegian government pension fund withdrew its investments in the Israeli military contractor Elbit Systems; following the lead of South African, Irish and Scottish trade union federations, Britain’s 6.5-million member labor federation, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), called for a consumer-led boycott and sanctions campaign against Israel, specifically targeting settlement products; and Hampshire College decided to divest from several companies profiting from the Occupation.
Another group making waves is Free Gaza, which has broken the siege by bringing shipments of aid by boat. Sometimes their boats have miraculously managed to sail from Cyprus to Gaza without Israeli interference. On their last effort, however, their boat was illegally intercepted on the high seas by the Israeli Navy.
Viva Palestina, a group led by British MP George Galloway, organized a massive convoy of material aid to Gaza in a month after the attack, using public pressure to force the Egyptian government to let the convoy pass through the Rafah crossing. They sent another caravan of aid in July, and to mark the one year anniversary, Viva Palestina is bringing 210 trucks and 450 activists laden with massive quantities of humanitarian aid. It is unclear whether or not the Egyptian government will let them in.
Another creative initiative is the Gaza Freedom March. Conceived in the spirit of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela, the Gaza Freedom March was designed to mark the one-year anniversary with a massive march to the Israeli border. Some 1,350 international participants from 43 countries are setting out for Gaza via Egypt to join with thousands of local people for the march. On the Israeli side of the border, Israelis and Palestinians will gather to join the call for an end to the siege. While the Egyptian government is refusing give permission for the international delegation to enter Gaza, the group is challenging that decision with thousands of phone calls to Egyptian embassies worldwide. They are also organizing solidarity actions in cities all over the world.
The Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, noting the world community’s failure to help the people of Gaza, cited the Gaza Freedom March and the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign as “the only meaningful current challenge to Israel’s violations of its obligations as the Occupying Power of the Gaza Strip under the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations Charter.”
As the year-end brings horrifying memories to the Palestinians in Gaza, we hope they recognize that grassroots groups the world over are not only thinking of them, but actively organizing to lift the siege that makes their lives so difficult.
Medea Benjamin (medea@globalexchange.org) is cofounder of CODEPINK and Global Exchange.
International Movements Breaking the Siege on Gaza
July 29, 2009 by Suzanne Morrison | CommonDreams.org, July 28, 2009
Since June 2007 the Israeli government has imposed almost complete closure over the Gaza Strip. The siege prevents nearly all movement of people or goods to and from the coastal region with only minimal amounts of humanitarian provisions inconsistently allowed in. With the exception of a small amount of carnations allowed out earlier this year, there has been a virtual ban on all exports from Gaza since 2007. [1] A quick socio-economic glimpse of Gaza includes agricultural losses totaling US $30 million and more than 40,000 jobs for the 2007/2008 season, the suspension of 98% of industrial operations, and more than 80% of Gaza’s population is now dependent on humanitarian aid from international aid providing agencies. [2]
Closure of Gaza and the West Bank has intermittently been imposed since 1991. While Israel prevents movement and access in the name of temporary security measures, the regularity and extent of these mechanisms, particularly since the Oslo process, represents an institutionalized policy of closure. Israel’s current siege on Gaza reflects an unprecedented and severe application of the closure policy. In the past year internationals have tried to break the siege on Gaza by bringing critical medical supplies and other humanitarian goods into Gaza.
Convoy to Gaza: The stories of life under siege
July 23, 2009Socialist Worker, July 23, 2009
The Viva Palestina delegation of solidarity activists from the U.S. was allowed to enter Gaza on July 15 with truckloads of desperately needed humanitarian supplies–but under the condition that the convoy leave again within 24 hours.
The delegation, led by British Member of Parliament and antiwar activist George Galloway, met one bureaucratic obstacle after another from Egyptian authorities. After negotiating an agreement with the government, the convoy finally left for the Rafah border crossing after several days, and with some of its supplies barred from getting through.
A number of SocialistWorker.org contributors were part of the Viva Palestina delegation. This is part two of a diary of the 24 hours in Gaza by Tom Arabia, Karen Burke, Ream Kidane, Brian Lenzo, Khury Peterson-Smith and Eric Ruder. The diary begins with “A day in Gaza.”
A building in the Jabaliya refugee camp destroyed by Israeli warplanes (Tom Arabia | SW)
July 16, 10:30 a.m.
From Eric: Haidar and I finished a traditional Palestinian breakfast of bread infused with olive oil and thyme. Then we drove around Remal, the administrative center of Gaza, where the concentration of ministry and legislative buildings, universities and Al Shifa Hospital took many direct hits in December and January. This is also the neighborhood of the Palestinian bourgeoisie that had lived in Tunisia, and returned to Palestine after the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Viva Palestina to Egypt: Let the convoy through to Gaza
July 13, 2009Kevin Ovenden, Viva Palestina coordinator | Socialist Worker, July 13, 2009
The Egyptian government has disrupted a convoy of solidarity activists bringing needed humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. Members of Viva Palestina report that officials stopped buses carrying part of the group’s delegation as they attempted to cross into the Sinai region on the way to the Rafah border crossing, where activists plan to enter Gaza with their aid convoy.
Supplies for the Viva Palestina convoy ready for loading (Eric Ruder | SW)
July 11, 9 p.m., Cairo time: The largest-ever U.S. humanitarian aid convoy is now gathering in Egypt to head across the border into Gaza on Monday, July 13.
Vehicles are coming from Alexandria, the medical supplies from Cairo and the advanced party of nearly 100 U.S. citizens is heading for the staging post of Al Arish, just before the border with Gaza.
That group, of four buses, has, however, been stopped from crossing over the Suez Canal and into the Sinai region, which leads to Gaza. The buses, carrying people, medical aid and bearing US, Egyptian and Palestinian flags in a spirit of international cooperation, have been held at a security checkpoint and given various, conflicting reasons for why they cannot proceed to their destination at Al Arish.
George Galloway tours U.S. for Palestine
April 30, 2009By Aaron Moore and Jacqueline Moore | Socialist Worker, April 28, 2009
GARDEN GROVE, Calif.–“With controversy comes interest, and with interest comes more support.” These are words that British MP George Galloway must be intimately familiar with. His support of the Palestinian cause is not the only brush with controversy that Galloway was referring to at an Al Awda event drawing some 1,000 people on April 7.
Galloway is well-known as an unflinching supporter of social justice causes that are often considered to be politically unpalatable to his colleagues. He has also challenged the government’s policies on Iraq, arguing that “Iraq is not separate from the question of Palestine,” and has written a biographical portrait of Fidel Castro.
What you can do
For more information on Viva Palestina and to read about the tour, visit their Web site.
Banned from scheduled speaking events in Canada due to “national security concerns,” this was Galloway’s last speaking appearance on his latest tour of North America. After an introduction by Al Awda co-founder Zahi Damuni, Galloway started his lecture with a description of how he became active in the Palestinian cause in the 1970s, and the events that took place along the route of his Viva Palestina project.
The Viva Palestina project succeeded in bringing over £1 million in aid to Gaza in February, after making stops throughout Europe and Africa. One theme of his talk was that common citizens are generally in support of the Palestinian cause once they hear the truth about the illegal Israeli occupation. He explained how he became involved in the issue after listening to a Palestinian activist.
Galloway noted the turning tide of public opinion toward a desire to end the occupation and reach peace. “There’s a new atmosphere in the U.S. over Palestine,” he said. “The phenomenal response to this tour demonstrates that.”
He argued that activists shouldn’t settle for a two-state peace solution, but should instead demand a one-state solution where people of all ethnicities and religions can dwell together in peace with equal rights for all.
He argued that Israel has “spent its entire bank of public support” during its recent 22-day assault and ongoing siege on Gaza. Galloway condemned Israel for “[taking] the precautions of locking all the doors,” giving the population of Gaza nowhere to run and nowhere to hide from the violence of the assault.
Galloway emphasized the gravity of the current situation in Gaza under the siege, and condemned the lack of media attention it has been getting: “At least when they were being bombed, they were in the news. Now they suffer in silence.” He also condemned the lack of support from surrounding Arab nations, specifically Egypt, stating, “This is an Arab siege, unless Egypt is no longer a country.”
He went on to announce plans to launch Viva Palestina USA, a convoy modeled after Europe’s to cross the Egyptian border into Gaza with aid from Americans. He said it would be co-led by Vietnam veteran and long-time peace activist Ron Kovic, who was also present at the event. The convoy would leave on July 4, as a symbolic gesture to acknowledge that Gaza’s right to self-determination is as significant as America’s
Solidarity convoy gets to Gaza Strip
March 10, 2009Monday 09 March 2009
THE Viva Palestina solidarity convoy finally crossed into Gaza on Monday.
After a tense day in which the planned crossing into Gaza was called off by organisers due to wrangling with Egyptian officials, the convoy began entering the besieged territory via the Rafah crossing at 9am local time.
The Viva Palestina volunteer crews brought the vehicles – which include a British fire engine, 12 ambulances and scores of lorries loaded with medical supplies, food, toys and clothes -from London to the occupied territory via a 9,000-mile route that passed through France, Spain, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
But, with just 30 miles standing between the solidarity activists and the Rafah crossing, the convoy was attacked on Sunday night in the Egyptian town of El Arish by unidentified youths hurling stones, bricks and bottles.
Three voluteers were injured, with two of them treated in hospital for their injuries, and several vehicles were daubed with anti-Hamas graffiti.
Respect MP George Galloway was adamant that the thuggery would not detract from the convoy’s message “of hope and friendship.”
Mr Galloway, who headed the convoy, said: “Our convoy, which set out from London on St Valentine’s Day with 100 vehicles, has grown to almost 250 and the mile-long caravan stretched for more than three miles as more vehicles joined us.
“We’ll leave behind more than £1 million in Gaza, but, more than that, the legacy will be a symbolic one of hope and friendship.”
Mr Galloway emphasised that the “message of the convoy is that the majority of British people abhor the Israeli attacks on the densest packed piece of earth on the planet and the blocking of essential supplies to the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Meanwhile, an Israeli human rights group charged in a court petition on Monday that Tel Aviv is violating international law by exploiting the West Bank’s mineral resources for its own benefit.
In the petition filed to Israel’s Supreme Court, the Yesh Din group charges that 75 per cent of the rock and gravel removed from 11 West Bank rock quarries is transferred to Israel.
Galloway: Widening the struggle
January 18, 2009(Friday 16 January 2009)
GEORGE GALLOWAY argues that the time has come to step up the struggle to achieve justice for Palestinians.
As I write, the death toll in Gaza is approaching 1,000, nearly 400 of them confirmed as children. I dread to think what the figure will be by the time you read this.
What is happening in Palestine is murder on a mass scale, perpetrated by one of the most powerful states in the world with the backing of US, Britain and its allies. I say what is happening in Palestine for a significant reason – Gaza is part of Palestine.
No-one should fall for the subtle tricks in the mainstream media which has so badly let us down and mangled the truth. I can think of no better time for the Morning Star to expand in print and online.
The corporate media gives the impression that there is this strange place called Gaza full of people called “militants” and “ruled” by Hamas.
But this is an attack on Palestine – all of Palestine and every Palestinian. Do not let them demonise the Gaza Strip or split it politically from the West Bank. There have been no rockets fired from the West Bank, but Israel has still killed 25 Palestinians there in recent months.
The attack on Gaza has already called forth a huge feeling of solidarity in Britain and the world. It has united Muslim and non-Muslim in huge demonstrations and other events. Now, it has to become a mass movement of practical and political solidarity.
We must not allow the Muslim community to feel intimidated by the kinds of Islamophobic smears they’ve faced that claim that any among them who raises the plight of the Palestinians is somehow an “extremist” or supporter of terrorism.
Nor should we allow the public mood and incipient movement to be derailed by a concerted attempt to smear it as anti-semitic. Among the loudest voices calling for isolating Israel are those of Jews.
I have just left the House of Commons chamber, where Gerald Kaufman has made one of the greatest speeches that I’ve heard there. He said that his grandmother had been shot in her bed by the nazis. She had not died so that her death could be used to justify the atrocities in Gaza, he said.
Leaders of the Catholic church have called Gaza a gigantic “concentration camp.” The highest United Nations officials are calling for an investigation into the war crimes in blowing up schools, universities and callously inflicting suffering on civilians.
The Labour government’s response to the onslaught on Gaza has been a disgrace. For three days it refused to call for any cessation of hostilities. Now it calls for a ceasefire, but on Israel’s terms, which mean the annihilation of the legitimate Palestinian resistance.
Remember this – Israel broke the ceasefire on November 4 when it attacked Hamas, the government of the Palestinian authority which was elected by the Palestinian people in the only democratic vote in the Arab world.
These are basic arguments which must be popularised throughout the movement. Matters are at a turning point. In my estimation, the dynamic that was apparent within the Stop the War movement in 2002 has resurfaced.
We’re not yet on the vast scale of February 15 2003, but the movement is on an upswing. There are other differences too.
There is, in my view, a higher understanding of the nature of zionism and of imperialism. There is also a greater sense of strategic debate in the movement.
That is why I want to end this column with some thoughts about how we might go forward:
Public protests are important. They keep our movement visible and, believe me, the pictures reach Palestine.
Pressure must be brought to bear on every elected representative and everyone in public life in Britain to speak out firmly for the Palestinian people and for official action against Israel, which UN officials want investigated for war crimes.
No person of conscience bought South African goods during apartheid. Today, Israel, its produce and manufactured goods should also be shunned. The call to boycott Israel is growing and Jewish supporters of the Palestinians are among the most vocal. Where does your MP or councillor stand?
It is time to flood the people of Palestine with practical aid. I am pulling together other individuals and groups to organise a convoy from Britain to Gaza led by fire engines donated by the Fire Brigades Union. Your mosque, community group, trade union, church, etc can sponsor it or provide a lorry, two drivers, costs and fill it with things which the people of Gaza need.
Through these steps, we can build political support for Palestine here and get aid over there. And, whenever you are called upon to vote in elections in Britain, remember to ask those who want your support: “What did you do when the bombs fell on the people of Gaza?”
The call for an aid convoy from Britain to Gaza is meeting with huge enthusiasm – Stop the War, the British Muslim Initiative and many others are coming on board.
I hope that it can provide a political focus to spur on a vast aid effort and a movement of political solidarity.
In the 1930s, working-class people across Europe rallied to aid the people of republican Spain, who faced the bombing of towns and the massacre of civilians by the forces of jackbooted General Franco.
The cry then was “Aidez l’Espagne!” The call today should be: “Viva Palestina!”
George Galloway is Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow.
Peace and Justice Post 
What Next, Viva Palestina?
January 14, 2010by Stuart Littlewood, Dissident Voice, January 12, 2010
Mere words cannot express my admiration for Viva Palestina and those who devote their efforts to it. I love the way they shamed – and not for the first time – the great powers and their gutless leaders.
And for his pains the British MP George Galloway has been declared ‘persona non grata’ in Egypt. How heartbreaking for him.
Given past disagreements, and the stubborn refusal of this latest convoy to be derailed, it was never going to end in hugs and kisses from President Mubarak’s henchmen, or fond messages of “Come ye back soon, George.”
What really matters is that they delivered the life-saving goods when the armies and navies of the so-called Free World wouldn’t even think about it. And they did it with style in the face of Egypt’s tantrums.
The nervous Egyptian authorities allowed exhausted convoy members only 30 hours inside Gaza to say hello, distribute their aid and take a rest. Sad and wobbly regimes simply cannot handle a few hundred humanitarians so they accuse them of “incitement” and “hostile acts”, and throw them out.
Now we hear grumbles from some activists that criticising Egypt diverts attention from the real culprit. But Israel’s evil machinations would find little success without the Egyptian government’s co-operation. There should of course be free movement of goods and people through the Gaza/Egypt border. Instead, Mubarak signed up to the US-Israel-EU conspiracy to keep the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip bottled up and helpless to resist what many are calling a slow genocide. In so doing, Egypt joined the worst offenders against international law, the UN Charter and the codes of decent conduct. It is time the spotlight fell on Cairo even if it means momentarily taking it off Tel Aviv and Washington.
Mubarak has slithered even further into the Middle East swamp of iniquity by constructing an iron Death Wall designed to create a hermetic border seal and inflict even more misery on his Muslim bothers and sisters, and the Christian community.
The Egyptian president is certainly not part of any solution. He has become a problem.
As for Mr Galloway, when can we expect to see him receive an official pat on the back for doing what the British government’s poseurs were too cowardly to do: bringing humanitarian aid to trampled people Britain still has a residual responsibility for?
Mr Galloway speaks of more convoys setting out for Gaza from Venezuela, Malaysia and South Africa. But Egypt has just announced that convoys, regardless of their origin, are no longer welcome. Instead, it is introducing a new “mechanism” whereby all aid for Gaza must in future be handed over to the Egyptian Red Crescent as soon as it arrives at the port of El-Arish. It will then be processed and passed on (if you can believe that) to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
Nobody trusts the Egyptian authorities to do this in an honest and transparent way. Besides, donors and fund-raisers often have direct links with charitable organisations inside Gaza and the West Bank. They would not wish to see the fruits of their labour and other people’s generosity disappear into some distribution ‘black hole’.
Britain still blames Hamas for Gaza’s suffering
And what says the British government, which never seems able to get anything right these days?
The Foreign Office’s “clear advice” is against all travel to Gaza. Why, when they should be facilitating travel to Gaza and applying sanctions against anyone who hinders it?
“The suffering of Gazan people is compounded by the violent and irresponsible actions of Hamas,” says the Foreign Office. “We are concerned by the recent upsurge in incidents of Hamas confiscating aid and obstructing the efforts of international aid organisations in Gaza.” We keep hearing these accusations but never proof. Gaza is on a war footing, under crippling blockade and in continual crisis. Hamas, the de facto government, runs the health service and is almost certainly best placed to know where medical supplies are needed most. Obviously they’ll step in when aid arrives.
Viva Palestina are at least as well informed about the situation in Gaza as the Foreign Office. Would convoy activists really go to so much trouble if Hamas was seizing everything they delivered?
Britain, while eagerly offering the services of the Royal Navy to help Israel stop “smuggling” into Gaza, won’t use its ships to spare the Gazans a slow death from starvation and prevent a public health catastrophe.
It is time our servants Brown and Miliband explained, carefully and logically, exactly what their problem is with Gaza and its democratically elected rulers so that the rest of us can try to understand – if indeed there is anything beneath the layers of pro-Israel ‘crapaganda’ worth understanding.
Go by sea
Events now seem to be prodding Viva Palestina to change tack. Perhaps it Is too simplistic to suppose that Gaza needs to be sea-fed like any other coastal community. But should humanitarian relief teams continue to seek access by land crossings that are controlled by militarised thugs bent on destroying Gaza’s population and halting any convoy in its tracks?
Deal direct. Surely that must be the aim. And do it in the name of God. A large armada of boats led by a multi-faith alliance demanding freedom of the seas and the right to an armed escort, could be the best vehicle. The United Nations should provide the necessary security arrangements to check the cargoes as they are landed in Gaza.
It would require considerable courage. Whether religious leaders have the balls for it is doubtful, even when the highest moral purpose is being served, but they might surprise us. A sprinkling of politicians could be relied on but the higher echelons know which side their bread is buttered.
Israel, Egypt, the US and the UK might wish to airbrush Mr Galloway out of the picture, but that’s unthinkable. He’ll be nominated for the next Nobel Peace Prize and seen as a million times more deserving than the fraud in the White House.
Yes, the REAL international community – that’s ordinary folk like you and me and Viva Palestina and everyone and his dog around the globe – are finally beginning to assert themselves against the corrupt power freaks that strut the world stage.
Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart’s website.
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