Written by Free Gaza team | 27 July 2010
Posted in News

By ROGER COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/opinion/27iht-edcohen.html?_r=1&ref=global&pagewanted=print

TROY, New York — The Dogans were a quiet family little noticed by their neighbors here in upstate New York. Ahmet Dogan had come to the area from Turkey to study accounting at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

He was a serious student; the Dogans did little entertaining. But when their younger son, Furkan, was born in 1991, the family threw a party and a neighbor recalled a toast “to the first U.S. citizen in the family.”

Furkan Dogan would live just two years in Troy, returning to Turkey with his family in 1993. But he was proud of his American passport and dreamt of coming back after completing medical school. Five Israeli bullets — at least two of them to the head — ended that dream on May 31. Dogan was 19.

The young American, who had just completed high school with excellent grades in the central Turkish town of Kayseri, had seen an online advertisement for volunteers to deliver aid to Gaza. The ad, from a Turkish charity called the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or I.H.H, said the goal of the trip was to show that Israel’s “embargo/blockade can be legally broken.”

Little interested in politics, but with an aspiring doctor’s concern for Palestinian suffering, Dogan won a lottery to go.

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Written by Free Gaza Team | 21 July 2010
Posted in News

July 21, 2010

A group calling itself U.S. Boat to Gaza is seeking $370,000 in the next month to send an aid ship to the Gaza Strip that would be named after President Obama's best-selling book "The Audacity of Hope."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/20/AR2010072006108.html

Rashid Khalidi, a friend of Obama who is active in Palestinian causes, has signed the appeal, part of a broader effort to thwart the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian enclave.

(A second longer article with video is here at the New York Times http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/american-activists-plan-gaza-flotilla-ship-named-for-obama-book/ )

Khalidi, a Columbia University professor, briefly became the subject of controversy during the 2008 presidential campaign when Sen. John McCain's camp tried to make an issue of what it called Obama's suspect friendships. The news of Khalidi's involvement in the boat appeal has led the National Review to call for a Justice Department probe of the academic on grounds he may have provided material support to a terrorist group.

The White House declined to comment. Khalidi said he was not aware the boat would be named after Obama's book when he agreed to add his name to the list of sponsors.

"But if the name is a problem for the administration, it can simply insist publicly that Israel lift the siege: end of problem, end of embarrassment," he wrote in an e-mail.

 

-- Glenn Kessler

Written by Free Gaza team | 16 July 2010
Posted in News

by Mel Frykberg

RAMALLAH - Israel has received international praise for its decision to ease its crippling blockade on Gaza following the country's deadly assault on a humanitarian flotilla trying to bring desperately needed humanitarian aid to the coastal territory. But according to the UN and human rights organizations, the easing of the blockade is insufficient in meeting Gaza's needs.

"Even if the blockade is eased it remains illegal under international law as it is a collective form of punishment on a civilian population," Chris Gunness from the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) told IPS.

"Eighty percent of Gaza's population is aid-dependent. Allowing more aid in is perpetuating this dependency and not addressing the issue of self- sufficiency or the root causes of the crisis," added Gunness.

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/07/15-6

Written by Free Gaza Team | 14 July 2010
Posted in News

(Istanbul,Tuesday, July 13th, 2010). It has been 43 days since the bloody raid carried out by the Israeli army in international waters. During this raid on the Mavi Marmara nine people, including one journalist, were killed. We are here today as survivors of that attack, and as journalists who were not silenced by Israeli bullets. There were about sixty press members from Turkey and all over the world on those ships, which departed to carry humanitarian aid to the civlians of Gaza, who are imprisoned under an illegal Israeli blockade.

The raid at dawn targeted both journalists and regular civilians. The press members were confronted with death like everyone else on the ship.
The soldiers who illegally boarded the ship and opened fire, by order from the Israeli Ministry of Defence, also prevented us from doing our job. In fact, they ultimately punished us for doing our job. This is in clear violation of international law. According to the “International Instrument for Citizenship and Civil Rights” which has been accepted by the United Nations since 1966, and the “First Principles Declaration Regarding the Mass Circulation of Media” which has been prepared by UNESCO.

This enshrines “the freedom to give information, by journalists” and forbids “preventing them from collecting information”. Rights which Israel has clearly violated.

http://solidariosengaza.wordpress.com/2010/07/13/manifiesto-del-grupo-flotilla-free-media-reunido-hoy-en-estambul/

We were faced with an inhumane intervention that was against international law and in violation of the most basic of human rights. One of our fellow journalists, Cevdet Kılıçlar, was ruthlessly executed with a bullet to his forehead while fulfilling his duties as a journalist.

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Written by Free Gaza Team | 10 July 2010
Posted in News

As we get ready to challenge Israel's illegal blockade of Gaza once more, we would ask you to remember the nine men murdered in cold blood by Israeli commandos, who came down from helicopters firing live ammunition.

The official autopsy reports will be released in the next couple of weeks, but preliminary reports say the nine men were shot over 31 times, most through the face and the top of the head. If you have not seen their photos or read who they are, we have now uploaded their information as well as how they were killed onto our FLICKR site. Please take a moment to pay your respects and maybe, add a comment.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/freegaza/?saved=1

These nine men were husbands and fathers, an American student who wanted to become a doctor, a fireman who came to help on board the Mavi Marmara, a photojournalist shot through the middle of the forehead as he tried to photograph Israel's assault on a civilian ship in international waters in the dark.

No matter what spin Israel sends out or its slick talking heads who try to justify murder and mayhem, it is important to remember that none of these men were armed with guns, sound bombs or tear gas. No Israeli soldier was shot... as members on board the Mavi Marmara tried to defend themselves... something every one of us would have done if our family, friends, ship or home was attacked by masked armed intruders.

No Israeli soldier was killed. The few who were injured were treated by Turkish doctors, then sent back to their unit.

The terrorists on board that ship as well as the other five ships, (where passengers were beaten, tied up, tear gassed and wounded), worked for the Israeli navy.