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27 November 2012
Posted in
News
Free Gaza joins Emergency International Delegation to Gaza
Tuesday, November 27 (Cairo, Egypt) The Free Gaza movement is joining an international delegation of volunteers including lawyers, medical personnel, boat experts and journalists to work in Gaza over the next one to three weeks. We, along with our partners, PENGO and Stop the Wall are part of a larger coalition including Code Pink and the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) who are sending in human rights observers.
Mushen Ramadan, Chair of PENGO in Gaza was one of the people sending out the call to come, “The role of internationals should increase in order to help put an end to the Israeli occupation as well as help Palestinians achieve their rights. This coalition reflects the highest human desire to work for democracy, self determination for the people against occupation and racism.”
Free Gaza board members, Audrey Bomse and Maria del mar Fernandez, both attorneys, will help take testimony. Ms. Bomse states, “I'm going to Gaza as an activist and as a lawyer to lend whatever help I can in documenting and reporting on the numerous violations of international law once again committed by Israel. I hope that in a small way what we do will put pressure on the international community to finally end Israeli impunity.”
Several teams of lawyers, journalists and translators will collect testimony from the survivors and from the families of victims for possible use against Israeli actions that caused the deaths of 165 Palestinians, including over 40 children in eight days of vicious pounding by Israeli war planes and naval vessels.
Maria del mar Fernandez, arrived in Gaza last Friday and is working with people on the ground to organize, “As I came in, I could see bombed houses and buildings. In some cases, you see a big hole instead of a home.”
Several former Free Gaza passengers and crew who sailed on our successful voyages in 2008 are also returning, to work with the fishermen at the port and to help document the destruction there as well.
The twenty-five member international delegation is also coming to show support for the people of Gaza and to bear personal witness to the destruction brought on to a civilian population that is held hostage in the world’s largest outdoor prison.
Ann Wright, a member of both Code Pink and a board member with Free Gaza issued the following, "Four years ago I traveled to Gaza to witness and write about the Israeli attack on Gaza. Based on that experience and after 4 years of international activism, with the Free Gaza Movement boats, the Gaza Freedom March, the Gaza Flotillas and Gaza's Ark to heighten worldwide consciousness of the violent attacks on Palestinians in Gaza--and in the West Bank, I return to Gaza with a group of 25 internationals in solidarity for respect and justice for Palestinians."
Contact: Lubna Masarwa, Free Gaza Board member 00 972 592829714 or 00 972 505633044
Muhsen Ramadan, PENGO 00 972 (0) 599606642
Jamal Juma, Stop the Wall 00 972 598921821
Amjad Shawwa, PENGO 00 972 599401297
Maria del Mar Fernandez, Free Gaza Board member, 00 972 (0) 595 157 194
Jimmy Leas, National Lawyers Guild, 00 972 (0) 59 5156994.
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