Viva Palestina aid convoy to attempt to break Gaza sea blockade
By Thameen Kheetan
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AMMAN - A fourth Viva Palestina international aid convoy will head to Gaza by sea in June, British organisers announced Monday. They said the convoy will head directly towards the Gaza harbour to avoid passing through Egyptian territory, due to a previous decision by Cairo to ban the convoy from coming back, after Viva Palestina activists clashed with Egyptian police in the port city of El Arish on their way to the besieged enclave in January.
Convoy leaders have already started collecting donations for the event, as they look for more sponsors to facilitate logistics related to the trip, which will depart from the UK in June, according to Viva Palestina coordinator Kevin Ovenden.
“We are looking to collaborate with various organisations and sponsors… and other international NGOs that support the Palestinian cause,” Ovenden told The Jordan Times over the phone from the UK yesterday, adding that they are aiming to collect “hundreds of thousands of dollars” of medical and humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip.
He noted that the convoy’s route will start from Britain, passing by western European countries and across the Mediterranean Sea to reach Gaza. The activist said he had no further details about the June convoy, noting that more information would be available soon as the activists proceed with preparations. The convoy will be the fourth organised by Viva Palestina activists in the UK and other countries after the 2008-09 Israeli attacks on Gaza, which claimed the lives of more that 1,400 Palestinians, including hundreds of children and women.
The coastal enclave has been under Israeli siege since 2007, when the Hamas movement took power there following a bloody dispute with the Fateh-ruled Palestinian Authority. In spite of the Egyptian ban, Ovenden said more convoys will continue to travel to Gaza by land later in the year, voicing hope that Cairo would reverse its decision and allow the activists to enter the strip via Egypt. “We don’t think the Egyptian government would be able to stick to its decision,” he remarked. Sources at the Egyptian embassy in Amman were unavailable for comment yesterday.
During its trip to Gaza after one year of the war, the third Viva Palestina convoy had to return from the port city of Aqaba through Jordan and Syria to reach El Arish after the Egyptians refused to let them in from the port of Nweibeh. Days after the convoy reached Gaza, Egyptian authorities told Viva Palestina activist and British MP George Galloway he was persona non grata. His fellow activists had clashed with police at the port amid Egyptian intentions to send some of the convoy’s trucks to Gaza through Israel.
Another British activist who took part in the third convoy, Nicholas Hall, doubted that Cairo would lift its ban, describing the Egyptian government as “firm” in this regard. Speaking to an audience of about 40 in a presentation he gave in Amman on Sunday about his experience, Hall highlighted the contrast between what the “hospitality” of people in Greece, Turkey, Syria and Jordan, and the “indifference” which he said the convoy faced in western Europe.
He accused the media in these countries of “suppressing” the Palestinian issue and not providing the public with enough information about the conflict. “The more they knew, the more they were coming and talking to us,” Hall told the audience, giving as an example the “thousands of Turks” who he said came out onto the streets at night in the rain to cheer on the third Viva Palestina convoy as it passed through Istanbul.
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