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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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New aid boat sets sights on Gaza mission
By Stefanos Evripidou
HOUSE PRESIDENT Marios Garoyian yesterday gave his support to the latest effort by the Free Gaza Movement (FGM) to send a boat filled with humanitarian aid to the beleaguered Gaza Strip.
The FGM along with the Volunteer Doctors of Cyprus tried last month to take urgent medical aid to the Palestinians during Israel’s offensive against the tiny strip using the sea route from Larnaca.
This ended in disaster on December 30 when the Israeli navy rammed the 60ft SS Dignity three times, destroying much of the vessel and forcing the group to divert to Lebanon instead.
Human rights activists vowed to try again to reach out to Palestinians in Gaza, who face severe medical shortages and little respite from the Israeli ground and air offensive which has seen hundreds of civilians, many women and children, killed as a result.
The Dignity suffered extensive damage from the collision with Israeli vessels and will need at least a month of repairs. For the next trip, the FGM will be using the Greek-flagged Arion.
The next team to try and breach the blockade of Gaza will include two Greek parliamentarians, Sophia Sacorafa and Thodoris Dritsas, doctors from Greece, France and the US, journalists from the international media and five FGM members.
The team met with Garoyian yesterday who expressed his support and wish that their effort will be successful.
The House President said the mission was a purely humanitarian effort which sent the message to the international community that the killing of innocent children and unarmed civilians could not be tolerated.
Garoyian also sent a message to “Israeli friends that this boat going to Gaza does not carry guns, terrorists or anything that could be considered an offensive weapon.
“This boat will take solidarity to Palestinians and the message that humanity does not leave the population of Gaza abandoned,” as well as carrying medicines to victims of the Israeli offensive.
The House President is due to have a meeting with the Israeli Ambassador to Nicosia tomorrow.
A Free Gaza co-ordinator, Vangelis Pissias, said: “We are going to Gaza again because we must go, because this area of the Mediterranean, the land of Palestine, once again has become a theatre of war. We will carry humanitarian aid, but in parallel we consider this as an action which rejects the logic of war and of violence.”
Pissias said around 30 people were taking part in the mission. Ten from Greece, while the remainder are British, American, French and a member of the Israeli Parliament. They are expected to leave this evening or tomorrow morning. Pissias said around 100 Israeli navy vessels were lined along the Gaza coastline.
Meanwhile, AKEL spokesman Andros Kyprianou yesterday condemned the continued attacks on the Palestinian population in Gaza. The fact that the victims were mainly civilians, and mostly children, was an insult to humanity, he said.
“This offensive is not just against Hamas. Today most of the victims are children – about 300 – and non-combatants and it is an affront to humanity to allow the murder of innocent children for the sake of political or other expediencies,” he stressed.
A delegation from the ruling communist party left Cyprus yesterday for a series of meetings with parties and organisations in Israel and the Occupied Territories. Kyprianou said the delegation would carry the message that the war in Gaza must end.
AKEL’s Euro MP Kyriacos Triantaphyllides joined eight other MEPs on a trip to Rafah via Cairo yesterday. The purpose of the mission, according to a press release issued by Triantafyllides’ office, is to examine on site the humanitarian crisis in the area.
The delegation is due to leave Cairo today to return to Strasbourg in time to brief the European Parliament about the situation in Gaza.
In a rare display of solidarity, the youth groups of government partners, AKEL, DIKO and EDEK gathered yesterday at Eleftheria Square in Nicosia to demonstrate against the Israeli offensive in Gaza. Speakers condemned attacks against the civilian population and called for an end to the military operation.
Copyright © Cyprus Mail 2008 |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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Aid ship leaves Cyprus for Gaza
The Associated PressPublished: February 4, 2009
NICOSIA, Cyprus: A Cyprus port official says a cargo ship carrying activists and supplies from Lebanon to Gaza is on its way to the Palestinian territory after a stopover in Cyprus.
Larnaca Port Manager Pampis Vassiliou said the Togo-flagged "Tali" carrying about 60 tons of medicine and food as well as eight activists and journalists left Cyprus for Gaza Wednesday morning after an overnight stopover at the port.
The ship is trying to reach Gaza in defiance of an Israeli blockade. Organizers said the trip has not been cleared by Israeli authorities, who have turned back similar aid boats trying to reach Gaza.
The blockade on Gaza was imposed after Hamas militants took over the impoverished Palestinian territory by force in 2007. |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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Children paid heavy price in Gaza conflict
Published: March 09, 2009
GAZA, March 9 (UPI) -- The head of the U.N. Children's Fund said Monday the recent Israeli-Hamas conflict in Gaza resulted in a heavy price being paid by children.
Ann Veneman, UNICEF executive director, on Monday concluded a weeklong trip to Israel and Gaza. Veneman said more than 400 children died in Gaza and in southern Israel during the Israeli military campaign targeting Hamas, the United Nations reported.
During the fact-finding mission, Veneman visited the West Bank, southern Israel and Gaza to see firsthand the burden imposed on children in the region during the conflict. The United Nations estimated that on top of the hundreds of children who died, more than 1,700 were injured during the hostilities.
"Children are the innocent victims of conflict," Veneman said in a statement.
"Schools have been damaged, homes lost and many children carry physical and psychological wounds."
© 2009 United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
This material may not be reproduced, redistributed, or manipulated in any form. |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 2152
Location: a cypriot in canada
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| “This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip,” said Cynthia McKinney, a former U.S. Congresswoman and presidential candidate. “President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that’s exactly what we tried to do. We’re asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey.” |
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| The latest from www.freegaza.org reports that the humanitarian vessel Spirit of Humanity has been attacked and boarded by the Israelis 23 miles off the coast of Gaza. Former US Congresswoman and Presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney is among the 21 human rights workers taken prisoner off the ship. |
http://www.greenpartywatch.org/2009/06/30/cynthia-mckinney-reportedly-taken-captive-by-israeli-navy/ |
the responses are telling...
find the link, persons on board...interesting. |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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| I'm standing in what remains of Taysir Sadia Yaseen's olive grove, looking up at a 12ft-high wire fence. It arrived in 2000 when the Israeli army, without any notice, bulldozed a trench on this rocky, precipitous hillside and erected it on his land, declaring it part of a "security buffer zone". He points to the Israeli settlement that the fence protects. It resembles a suburban dormitory town, like something out of The Truman Show, only fortified and on a hilltop. It is encircled by twice the area of land and served by a new road, exclusively for the use of Israeli settlers and prohibited to Palestinians. This road in turn is guarded by another, military, road with routine patrols – we can hear army trucks whizzing by – and, finally, the fence. |
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/13/farming-in-palestine
...not to mention how the oil rights from ocean exploration have been usurped over the years, since 1967... |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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Pillay told the 47-member council that she supported the report's recommendations, including its call for urgent action to counter impunity - meaning that Israel and Hamas must investigate and prosecute those who committed war crimes.
The 575-page report concluded that Israel used disproportionate force, deliberately targeted civilians, used Palestinians as human shields, and destroyed civilian infrastructure during its Dec. 27-Jan. 18 incursion into the Gaza Strip to root out Palestinian rocket squads.
... Pillay, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said "holding war criminals accountable and respect for human rights are not obstacles to peace, but rather the preconditions on which trust and, ultimately, a durable peace can be built."
The report accused Palestinian armed groups including Hamas of deliberately targeting civilians and trying to spread terror through rocket attacks on southern Israel.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1121045.html |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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"My parents were part of the historic movement in which there is a heavy dose of redemption and messianism," says Pachnik. "They thought they were coming back to the land of the Bible, without being aware that there were people here. The biggest sin of the first generation of settlers was not the return to Judea and Samaria; the return to the land of our forefathers is not a sin. We returned to a place to which we have a historic belonging. The story of the People of Israel has much more to do with Gush Etzion than with Tel Aviv. But the big mistake for which we are now paying the price is that we did not dare, we did not agree, we were unable to look around and say: there are other people here. You have to know how to live with them and how to accept them."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1144264.html |
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Not all settlers and Palestinians want each other to disappear
By Linoy Bar-Gefen and Meron Rapoport |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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The rise in rocket fire comes amid mounting tensions in the region sparked by Arab fears that Israel has been moving to deepen its hold on annexed, mainly Arab east Jerusalem. It has also been accompanied by fresh clashes along the Gaza-Israel border.
On Tuesday, a Palestinian teenager was killed and several others were wounded as Israeli troops fired on protesters near the border of the blockaded territory. And two Israeli soldiers, including an officer, were killed along with two Palestinian gunmen during fierce clashes last weekend when Israeli tanks carried out a brief incursion into Gaza. |
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=israel-warns-of-new-gaza-assault-after-air-strikes-2010-04-02
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"We won't allow frightened children to again be raised in bomb shelters and so, in the end, it will force us to launch another military operation," said the deputy premier. "I hope we can avoid it, but it is one of the options we have, and if we don't have a choice, we will use it in the near future," he said.
Three Palestinian children - aged two, four and 11 - were hit by flying glass in one of the six overnight raids, said Moawiya Hassanein, head of the Palestinian emergency services in Gaza. There were no other reports of casualties. The head of the Islamist Hamas movement's government in the Gaza City, Ismail Haniya, reacted by blaming the Jewish state for the increase in tensions. "We call on the international community to intervene to stop this escalation and Israeli aggression," Haniya said in a statement.
The strikes came after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants landed near the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon late on Thursday, causing damage but no casualties, the army said. Nearly 20 rockets have been fired into Israel in the past month, including one that killed a Thai farm worker, in the worst spate of violence since the end of Israel's 22-day assault on the territory launched in December 2008. |
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repulsewarrior
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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| Pro-Palestinian activists aboard one of vessels headed for Strip to 'break Israeli blockade' say if seized they will not put up a fight, explain to soldiers that they are violating international law. 'Jewish state was not established to impose blockades,' one activist says |
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3893165,00.html |
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repulsewarrior
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Posts: 2152
Location: a cypriot in canada
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...10 activists killed.
...it appears that the ships are now bound for Haifa.
why did an Iranian flag as big as Turkey's fly on the ferry?
why did it land in "cyprus"?
regretfully Turkey has made its appearance as a hijacker of Humanitarian Aid. |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Posts: 2152
Location: a cypriot in canada
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President Demetris Christofias condemned both the naval blockade of Gaza, which he said violated international law, and the attack. "The killing of people is condemnable for everyone and the killing of non combatants constitutes a criminal act,” he said.
“No one is happy, first of all with continuing blockade, which followed the attack against Gaza in December 2008 with its catastrophic results on Palestinians.”
The continuing of this blockade violates International Law and “challenges the human rights of each of us”, he added.
http://www.cyprus-mail.com/cyprus/cyprus-condemns-israeli-actions/20100601
Their strong condemnation was echoed by groups around the world, from the Elders to the European Commission and Parliament.
Cypriot MEP Kyriakos Triantafyllides, who was last week one of 40 activists barred from joining the flotilla by the Cyprus government also slammed the IDF's actions. "My first reaction is anger. I would never have imagined such a disproportionate use of violence could happen. The attacks were completely unfounded, and I have issued a statement to Brussels calling for an investigation and the immediate release of the activists."
Another Cypriot who could have been spending today hospitalised or imprisoned in Ashdod port today is Eleni Theocharis, also an MEP.
Theocharis took part in last year’s flotilla but turned down and invitation this year after learning that Turkish and Israeli intelligence staff had infiltrated the flotilla.
"I strongly contest this piracy as a terrorist act by the IDF in international waters. It is an example of state terrorism,” she said. |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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The decision to send the two ships comes hot on the heels of a report that Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards had expressed readiness to escort aid flotillas to Gaza.
"If the respected leader of the revolution (supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) gives an order in this regard, the Revolutionary Guards' naval forces will take a practical step using their capability and equipment to escort flotillas to Gaza," Khamenei's aide in the Guards' naval wing, Ali Shirazi, told the Mehr news agency on Sunday.
It was unclear, however, how the Guards would escort the flotillas as their naval wing is largely made up of speed boats and light vessels.
Blaming the United States, Britain and France for the deadly raid, Khamenei called for the prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak.
http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/MDCS-867BE5?OpenDocument
TEHRAN — The Iranian Red Crescent has decided to send two aid ships to Gaza this week in the latest bid to break the blockade imposed on the Palestinian territory by Iran's regional archfoe Israel.
Red Crescent director for international affairs Abdolrauf Adibzadeh told the state IRNA news agency late on Sunday that the decision to send the ships was taken after a meeting with the foreign ministry.
"One ship will carry donations made by the people and the other will carry relief workers. The ships will be sent to Gaza by end of this week," Adibzadeh said |
...it grows. |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
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Location: a cypriot in canada
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| Two Iranian ships intended to head for Hamas-controlled Gaza are waiting for their government's approval to challenge Israel on the high seas, escorted by “volunteer marines” that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to send “to teach Israelis a lesson.” |
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Ali Shirazi, the Revolutionary Guard’s spokesman for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said it was “Iran’s duty to defend the innocent people of Gaza.”
A Red Crescent ship to Gaza was stopped by the Israeli Navy a year and a half ago, but the charged anti-Israeli atmosphere following the latest flotilla clash has encouraged Arab and left-wing colleagues to try to break Israel’s blockade over free passage to the Gaza coast.
An Iranian maritime convoy to Israel could provoke a military clash on the high seas, but it also would highlight Israel’s claim that lifting the blockade would allow Iran to directly send advanced arms, ammunition and terrorists for the de facto Hamas government in Gaza.
The Iranian Red Crescent ships were prepared with cooperation from the Turkish government, according to the London Express. Ahmadinejad reportedly told Turkish leaders in Istanbul last week that the vessels would be prepared for a direct clash with the Israeli Defense Forces.
Turkey was one of two countries that voted against new sanctions imposed on Iran last week by the United Nations Security Council. Once considered a friend of Israel and distant from Iran, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has totally reversed government policy over the past two years and has joined the Syrian-Iranian-Hizbullah axis while stating that it still wants goods relations with Israel. (IsraelNationalNews.com) |
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138022 |
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Iran apparently is trying to save face by hitching a ride to Gaza with Hizbullah-Lebanese ships, after having backed down three times from its bravado that it would launch its own ships to risk challenging the Israeli navy on the way to Gaza.
"A Lebanese ship is heading to Gaza in a few days and Iranian lawmakers are trying to reach Gaza via this ship which is threatened by the Zionist regime," Iranian legislator Mahmoud Ahmadi Bighash said Saturday. He blamed Egypt for Iran’s backing down from its announcement that its Red Crescent organization would set sail for Hamas-controlled Gaza, saying Egypt had refused to allow Iranian Members of Parliament to reach Gaza by land.
“Egypt wants to misuse Iranian parliamentarians' plan to visit Gaza to improve its reputation ruined during the 22-day war between Hamas and the Zionist regime", said Bighash, referring to last year’s Operation Cast Lead. "The Zionist regime wants to spread pressures across land borders of Gaza …due to presence of aid flotillas in Gaza coast."
Iran announced Thursday it is scrapping its plan to sail, two weeks after it first ditched the launching of a ship to try to challenge Israeli sovereignty over the Gaza coastal waters. The United States and the European Union have backed the Israeli embargo to prevent the open delivery of advanced weapons from Iran, Hizbullah and Syria to the Hamas terrorist organization.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/138273 |
...for the record, " The United States and the European Union have backed the Israeli embargo to prevent the open delivery of advanced weapons ", however, according to the UN, Gazans recieve one-quarter of their needs nutritionally and medically, never mind the sanitary conditions, as a direct result of this objective. |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 2152
Location: a cypriot in canada
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http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36086&Cr=flotilla&Cr1=
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| Israeli action against Gaza flotilla ‘unlawful’ – UN Human Rights Council panel |
“It betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality. Such conduct cannot be justified or condoned on security or any other grounds. It constituted grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law.” |
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repulsewarrior
Ministerial
Joined: 06 Jan 2006
Posts: 2152
Location: a cypriot in canada
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...from the Guardian, alledged crime, but newsworthy just the same.
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