Waiting for the flotilla

On the high seas of the Mediterranean, away from the coast of Cyprus, a flotilla made of eight vessels is approaching the Gaza Strip in the largest attempt ever to break the three-year blockade imposed by Israel.

Other vessels have made it to Gaza by sea in previous voyages, and others still were stopped and detained by Israeli authorities, but this is the first time an attempt to break the siege is going beyond the symbolic.

With four cargo ships in the flotilla, the Free Gaza Movement is shipping around 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including cement, medical supplies, paper and prefabricated houses. It is also ferrying over 600 passengers from around the world, including MPs, Nobel Peace laureates, a former US ambassador, journalists, activists and Palestinians who were banned from returning to their homeland.

Awaiting them out at sea, Israeli warships are on full alert to prevent them from reaching the coast of Gaza, and to detain all the passengers. A counter-flotilla made of Israeli citizens has also set sail to oppose the humanitarian cargo. A makeshift detention camp has been set up in the Israeli port of Ashdod from where the arrested passengers would then face deportation or Israeli trials.

Scenes of Israeli commandos and naval warships engaged in a showdown on the high seas – dubbed Operation Sky Winds by the Israeli military – to stop humanitarian aid would dent further Israel’s image to the world. As the Israeli government reiterates it would intercept the cargo “at any cost” and the Free Gaza flotilla insists it will forge ahead, a confrontation seems inevitable.

Meanwhile fishing boats await in the port of Gaza City as thousands of Gazans are expected to greet the vessels should they manage to evade the Israelis on Sunday morning.

It would be an emotional scene, seeing the massive cargo and passenger boats reaching the lonely Gaza harbour, where only a handful of fishing boats can be seen nowadays berthing to the backdrop of the Israeli navy shooting at anything approaching the imposed 3 nautical mile limit from shore.

The aid the flotilla is attempting to bring over, particularly cement and prefabricated houses, are sorely needed as most of the reconstruction after the last war on Gaza in January 2009 remains impossible because of Israel’s ban on construction material.

Some Gazans are however not enthusiastic about the arrival of more aid – still bitter at the experience of the distribution of the humanitarian cargo brought into Gaza by British MP George Galloway last January.

“We saw nothing of all the things they brought,” said Mahmoud, a refugee living in Jabalya Camp. “Where are the cars? Where are the heaters? They were all taken by Hamas. That is what’s going to happen again tomorrow.”

Still, upon seeing the coverage the flotilla was finally getting on international news channels, Mahmoud himself realised the value of breaking the siege through the sea. It will make the blockade seem useless, the Israelis will be shown as the aggressors who, despite the disengagement from Gaza, are still occupying the narrow stretch of land. It has also pushed politicians from around the world, as well as governments, into talking about the blockade, taking a stand against it and in some notable cases even endorsing the flotilla.

At the same time, Israel felt compelled to embark on a public relations campaign claiming there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza and that the flotilla was “just a provocation”. In a video clip shown by the Israeli military to make the point that Gazans are living in luxury, the poshy Roots Restaurant is shown offering lavish food in a high class setting. Surprisingly, the Israeli PR machine found nothing wrong in the footage showing Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas dining there with Fatah strongman Muhammed Dahlan. Abbas and Dahlan have been both kicked out of Gaza years ago. The footage was shot in 2005, two years before Israel blockaded Gaza.

Nowadays Roots Restaurant remains one of the pushier restaurants in Gaza City, but with 80% of Palestinians here living in poverty and dependent on humanitarian aid, few are those who afford its beef stroganoff with meat smuggled through the tunnels.

Israel also seems confused about the message it wants to convey. On the one hand it says the Free Gaza flotilla is useless because Gaza has no humanitarian crisis, on the other it boasts of sending over humanitarian aid itself – confirming there is a humanitarian need.

The European Union’s foreign minister Catherine Ashton yesterday said the EU was “gravely concerned by the humanitarian situation in Gaza”. Stopping short of giving a blanket endorsement to the flotilla, Lady Ashton added: “The continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive. We would like to reiterate the EU's call for an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza.”

The question is: Why does Gaza need aid in the first place? If there was no destruction, there would be no need for reconstruction. If there was no blockade, there would be no need for special medical referrals and special permits to go abroad. If there was no occupation, Israel would have no need to count inflatable toys, spices and ice cream machines entering Gaza except as normal exports if Palestinian businessmen decided to import them. And if there was a Palestinian state the Israeli embassy would stick to talking about Israel and leaving Palestinian data to its neighbouring country.

Used by the terrorists? Not quite. Bianca Zammit explodes the myth

It’s dark, people barely visible are talking in candle light, there is no electricity. The glimmering candle allows the glimpse of a kufiya, the Palestinian flag, Arabic coffee on the table. Someone knocks on the door. Another one of them joins the circle. The place: a dark flat on the first floor of an old building in the main road of Gaza City, the nest of Gaza’s branch of the International Solidarity Movement, the residence of Bianca Zammit and five other foreign activists.

Surrounding the 28-year-old Maltese human rights volunteer are members of this international cell – from Italy, UK, US, Montenegro, and Canada – and lots of Palestinians visiting her after two days in hospital. An Israeli sniper’s bullet pierced through her thigh during a demonstration at the border in Al Meghazi on Saturday 24 April.

ISM members and Palestinians alike keep pouring in at the apartment, cramped in a room that gets smaller as it gets more crowded with people and flowers. In the middle of coffee table, a generous dish of maftool (couscous) with chicken restoring the energy to the activists after another day dodging Israeli soldiers’ bullets and shooting back with cameras. Earlier on the same day, 19-year-old Ahmad Suleiman Salem Dib was killed at a demonstration in Nahal Oz when an Israeli soldier shot him in his leg.

It is not just the live Israeli bullets that are being shot at them lately. Since Zammit – the first international activist to be injured in the Gaza buffer zone demonstrations – made world headlines, the ISM has come under renewed attack from the Israeli establishment and the Zionist right wing, with fuel added for good measure by the Israeli Ambassador to Malta, Gideon Meir.

The ambassador told Net TV last Tuesday that Zammit was “used” by Palestinian militants and accused the ISM of putting foreigners in harm’s way at the border so that Hamas and Islamic Jihad “could plant bombs and injure Israeli soldiers”.

“I have no idea how this Maltese woman ended up near the buffer zone,” Meir said. “She was probably asked to go there by the ISM or Hamas members.”

In the same breath, he described Zammit’s incident as “unfortunate”. Yesterday he reiterated his claims to MaltaToday, adding that the Israeli government has started a formal investigation into the shooting.

In a strongly-worded letter sent to the Israeli government the day after the incident, the Maltese foreign ministry demanded an investigation into the “totally unwarranted attack”

“The Embassy of Malta (in Tel Aviv) expects that a thorough investigation be carried out on this deplorable incident that could have led to far more serious consequences,” a foreign ministry statement said.

Meir has already set the tone for the investigation: “One must understand that the shooting took place in a ‘conflict zone’,” he said. “The issue of agricultural land is irrelevant because the area is a conflict zone. Peaceful or not, the demonstration was not held in the city centre where it is legitimate to demonstrate against the Israeli government, and ISM is an anti-Israeli organisation. ISM has an anti-Israeli policy in whatever it does and says.”

This is not the first time the ISM finds itself under ideological fire – indeed the attack comes within a wider campaign to discredit all international, Palestinian and even Israeli human rights organisations in Israel that are being criminalised for being “anti-patriotic”, with key activists arrested or deported summarily. Nor is ISM shy of being at the forefront of Palestinian resistance, under threat of gunfire but vehemently pacific.

The demonstrations organised by ISM and local organisations on the Gaza buffer zone with Israel are inspired by the non-violent protests held every Friday in Na’alin and Bil’in in the West Bank, where the ISM is also active with Palestinians, Israeli and foreign activists.

“We are a threat to the Israeli occupation because whenever there are foreigners documenting violations they are exposed to the world,” Zammit said. “That’s mainly our mandate: to be present alongside Palestinians who are fighting their cause. This is not our conflict, we are there to try and deter violations and to document them when they happen.”

Despite Meir’s claim that the ISM is linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, journalists in Gaza say the opposite is true, as the publicity the non-violent demonstrations are getting is irking the Hamas higher echelons that are vying to be seen as the sole resistance.

Also, being linked to Hamas and Islamic Jihad at once is next to impossible, as the two Islamist movements do not see eye to eye, particularly about the resistance strategy.

“The ISM has no links to armed Palestinian factions,” Neta Golan, herself an Israeli Jew and co-founder of ISM, said. “Palestinian popular demonstrations, such as these non-violent protests in Gaza, are open to anyone unarmed. The claim that the ISM receives orders from armed groups is a figment of the ambassador’s imagination, and we challenge him to produce evidence,” Golan said.

The so-called “closed military zones” are in effect areas unilaterally declared so by Israel on Palestinian land, mostly agricultural, having no grounds in international law.

Golan says the Israeli-declared no-go areas are also a way of suppressing nonviolent resistance by force.

“Whenever there is a peaceful Palestinian demonstration, it becomes a ‘closed military zone’,” she said. “In the West Bank in February, two villages, Bil'in and Na'lin, were declared ‘closed military zones’ for six continuous months in an attempt to suppress popular non-violent resistance by the villagers.”

Israel argues that the buffer zone is frequented by militants shooting rockets or attacking Israeli soldiers patrolling the border – but the demonstrations in which Zammit was participating are in support of unarmed farmers carrying Palestinian flags.

Adding insult to injury
Bianca Zammit feels insulted by the ambassador’s “patronising and deceitful attitude” towards her.

“Him saying I was an innocent victim of ISM just leaves me lost for words,” she said. “I’ve been thinking of coming to Palestine for years, and I have equally worked as a human rights activist. To imply I was manipulated for political ends is downright insulting. We work with local committees, farmers, women’s groups and student organisations to document and publicise human rights violations.”

Golan called Meir’s claim that “the ISM does not inform its members that the areas where they're protesting are closed military zones” a “total fabrication”.

“ISM works on a consensus basis and individual volunteers make their own decisions about which actions they want to take part in, and are free to do so as long as they fall within our three core principles: non-violence, local Palestinian leadership and collective action,” the ISM co-founder said.

Zammit confirmed ISM enrols members only after lengthy information sessions in which they are briefed about the practical and political issues surrounding the Middle East conflict, and that none of the members wilfully put their lives at risk.

“None of us wants to die, we’re not suicidal,” Zammit said. “You can be of no help if you are injured or dead. All our decisions are based on consensus, and every individual can opt out from any event or activity.”

As to funding, ISM relies on individual donations from countries where it has local fundraisers. Volunteers pay their own flights and expenses, while ISM covers accommodation, transport and legal assistance when required.

“The ISM does not receive any funding from any state, government or association,” Golan said. “We rely on donations from average people all over the world that support peace and the Palestinian struggle for freedom.”