After Israel assaulted a humanitarian aid ship bound for the Gaza strip, many have stood up to speak about this completely unnecessary act of brutality.
The question is, how does this influence the Middle East peace process, and where does this act lie in the continued struggle for justice in the Gaza strip?
Coverage of headlines from Democracy Now!
Flotilla Survivors Deported from Israel
Survivors aboard the flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip have begun to provide their accounts of the Israeli assault that left at least nine people dead and sparked an international uproar. Israel has begun deporting the 682 people seized from the ships during the assault. Many have challenged Israeli military claims that soldiers acted in self-defense after repelling onto the Mavi Marmara. Some say Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the vessel. Passengers on other ships in the flotilla say they were threatened at gunpoint.
Aid Ship Continues Gaza Trek as New Flotilla Planned
Despite the assault, another aid ship has set sail for Gaza intending to challenge the Israeli blockade. The ship is named after Rachel Corrie, who was crushed to death by an Israeli military bulldozer in March 2003. The European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, meanwhile, has announced it’s planning a flotilla of even more ships than the first to set sail for Gaza in the coming weeks.
US Maintains Refusal to Condemn Flotilla Assault
The Obama administration has refused to condemn the Israeli assault. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton outlined the US stance in Washington.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: "The United States supports the Security Council’s condemnation of the acts leading to this tragedy, and we urge Israel to permit full consular access to the individuals involved and to allow the countries concerned to retrieve their deceased and wounded immediately. We urge all concerned countries to work together to resolve the status of those who were part of this incident as soon as possible. We support, in the strongest terms, the Security Council’s call for a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation. We support an Israeli investigation that meets those criteria."
Ban: Lifting Gaza Blockade Would Have Prevented Flotilla Deaths
All the permanent members of the Security Council except for the United States have called for Israel’s three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip to be lifted. On a visit to Uganda, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon renewed his demand for an end to the blockade.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon: "Had the Israeli government heeded to international calls and my own strong and urgent and persistent call to lift the blockade of Gaza, this would not have happened. Therefore, it is again very important and urgently required that Israelis would immediately lift this blockade of Gaza."
Thousands Worldwide Protest Flotilla Assault
Global protest, meanwhile, continues to grow in the aftermath of the assault. Tens of thousands of people turned out in rallies across the world Tuesday, from South Africa to Greece to Lebanon to England to cities across the United States. Here in New York, a large crowd marched on the Israeli consulate.
Remi Kanazi: "I think anybody, a person of conscience, should be here today to stand in solidarity with the Gaza boats, with the aid boats, with the people of Gaza. I mean, as an American citizen, my tax dollars are going to fund every single Israeli bullet, every Apache helicopter, Hellfire missile, cluster bomb, white phosphorus, and I think we need to stand up. It’s important to educate, but it’s also important to take action. And being in the streets or engaging in boycott, divestment and sanctions, we need to be engaged in the community, we need to be part of the grassroots, and we need to be moving things forward and standing in solidarity with Palestinian society."
US Student Loses Eye After Israel Fires on West Bank Protest
Meanwhile, an American college student has lost her left eye after being shot in the face by an Israeli tear-gas canister during a protest against the flotilla assault in the occupied West Bank. The student, twenty-one-year-old Emily Henochowicz, underwent surgery in a Jerusalem hospital on Tuesday. The Israeli peace activist Jonathan Pollack witnessed the attack.
Jonathan Pollack: "It was a spontaneous and quite small demonstration against the atrocious violence on that ship coming to Gaza, a hundred people at its largest at the beginning. And at the time Emily was shot, there were about, I don’t know, twenty people at most there. Emily was standing aside from where things were happening, and at some point the border police officers just started shooting indiscriminately, shooting directly at us tear-gas projectiles, one from a very small distance of about twenty, ten to twenty meters. Emily was hit in the face by one of those, and it was intentionally aimed towards us. There could have been no mistake, the small distance and the place where she was standing at."
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