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{:en}{:en}{:en}{:en}{:en}Freedom Flotilla Coalition
Wednesday, 24 January 2024
MEDIA RELEASE:
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is planning to launch a series of non-violent direct actions aimed at providing humanitarian relief and ending Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza and occupation of Palestine.
For more than 17 years, successive Israeli governments—supported by Western governments and Egypt—have sustained and enforced an illegal and inhumane blockade on Gaza.
Over this period, Israel has illegally controlled the supply of all products and services to Palestinians in Gaza including food, medicine, water and electricity, kept them under surveillance and determined who is allowed to enter, leave and return to Gaza. Israel has effectively turned Gaza into the world’s largest concentration camp.
In November 2023 the Freedom Flotilla Coalition partnered with a new organisation, the International Campaign to Save Gaza (ICSG), in an emergency response to the calls from Palestinians in Gaza. Together we have been sourcing boats to challenge the illegal blockade and transport aid to Gaza. The ICSG has built relationships with organisations in Algeria, Lebanon, Libya and Türkiye, and this support continues to grow.
Now, with additional help from other organisations and individuals, the ICSG plans to sail in the near future from Misrata in Libya and Sidon in Lebanon to Gaza with humanitarian aid. Starting in February 2024, we are also planning a series of nonviolent direct actions to directly challenge the blockade.
Denying Palestinian people the basics of life and silencing their ongoing calls for freedom led directly to the events of 7 October 2023, where Palestinian people broke out of the illegal Gaza ghetto. Since then the occupying Israeli state has engaged in a genocidal campaign, displacing almost all of the 2.3 million Palestinians from their homes, killing more than 30,000 people and wounding more than 60,000.
On 22 December 2023, the UN Security Council passed Resolution 2720 demanding that ‘all parties to the conflict take all appropriate steps to ensure the safety and security of … all other personnel engaged in humanitarian relief activities consistent with international humanitarian law, without prejudice to their freedom of movement and access [and] stresses the need not to hinder these efforts, and recalls that humanitarian relief personnel must be respected and protected…’
Despite this UN Security Council Resolution, Gaza remains the only closed port on the Mediterranean Sea, while a mere trickle of aid is allowed by land, with thousands of humanitarian aid trucks waiting in al-Arish and Rafah for Israeli “permission” to enter Gaza.
With a few notable exceptions, governments and international bodies continue to fail the Palestinian people and so it is up to civil society to take action. While the U.S. and its allies are actively complicit with the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, working with the International Campaign to Save Gaza, continues to sail for the freedom of Palestinians.
Join us on the right side of history and support the Flotilla boats as we challenge the blockade and deliver aid to the Palestinians of Gaza by sharing this news and donating if you can:
Donate directly to ICSG: https://savegazza.com/en/donate/
or via your any of the FFC partner organisations: https://freedomflotilla.org/donate/
For further information or to arrange an interview, please contact media teams for the different FFC campaigns.