January, 07 2009, 01:07pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Huwaida Arraf (Cyprus): +357-96-723-999
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Angela Godfrey-Goldstein (Jerusalem): +972-547-366 393
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Ramzi Kysia (U.S): +1-703-994-5422
We Are Coming Back, And We Are Putting Israel On Notice
LARNACA, Cyprus
Today the Free Gaza Movement put Israel on
notice that we are sending another emergency boat to Gaza. We will
announce our exact departure date, time and route in the next few days.
We will travel from Cypriot waters, into international waters, then
directly into Gaza territorial waters, never nearing Israeli waters.
The ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have killed over 640
Palestinians, including many children and women, and injured thousands.
These acts by Israel are severe and massive violations of international
humanitarian law as defined by the Geneva Conventions, both in regards
to the obligations of an Occupying Power and in the requirements of the
laws of war.
The United Nations has failed to protect the Palestinian civilian
population from Israel's massive violations of international
humanitarian law. Therefore, we concerned citizens from Belgium,
Columbia, France, Canada, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Jordan,
Kuwait, Scotland, Spain, and the United States, feel that it is our
moral duty to try to do just that.
The Israeli military violently attacked an earlier attempt by the
Free Gaza Movement to send an emergency boat filled with doctors and
medical supplies to Gaza. In the early hours of Tuesday, December 30,
the Israeli Navy rammed our boat, the DIGNITY, in international waters.
Neither the DIGNITY, nor its passengers and crew constituted any kind
of threat to Israel, and the Israeli government had been alerted to the
boat's mission, the previous day. Yet we were violently rammed three
times on the side without any warning from the Israeli Navy, in an
obvious attempt to disable the vessel, jeopardizing the lives of the 16
passengers on board.
We are not deterred by the violence of the Israeli military and
intend to sail to Gaza again and again. We are physicians, journalists,
members of parliament, and human rights observers who intend to reach
the people of Gaza to deliver much needed medical aid and witness the
atrocities being committed against the Palestinians there.
We are willing to put our bodies on the line to stop Israel's
unlawful massacres of the Palestinian people (we have received death
threats warning us not to repeat our attempt) and bring the attention
of the world to the war crimes happening in Gaza against 1.5 million
Palestinians.
Free Gaza is a human rights group founded in 2006. Our mission is to break the Israel's illegal siege on Gaza's 1.8 million civilians, since it inflicts collective punishment on the Palestinians who live there and has destroyed its economy. Free Gaza believes in direct action in confronting Israel's abuse of Palestinians using non-violent means and has found these voyages to be one of the most effective ways to alert the world to the prison-like conditions of Gaza. Ultimately, there is no better example of direct action than Free Gaza's sustained attempts to break the siege on Gaza which Israel claims it no longer occupies
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
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Israel conquered the western two-thirds of the Golan Heights in 1967 and has illegally occupied it ever since, annexing the seized lands in 1981.
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
"Violence is never the answer, but people can be pushed only so far," she continued. "This is a warning that if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change, lose faith in the ability of the people who are providing the healthcare to make change, and start to take matters into their own hands in ways that will ultimately be a threat to everyone."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
The organization has also filed four complaints with the International Criminal Court "for war crimes committed by the Israeli army against journalists," according to the roundup, which includes stats from January 1 through December 1.
"In Gaza, the scale of the tragedy is incomprehensible," wrote Thibaut Bruttin, director general of RSF, in the introduction to the report. Since October 2023, 145 journalists have been killed in Gaza, "including at least 35 who were very likely targeted or killed while working."
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