Israel Intercepts Aid Boat Bound for Besieged Gaza Strip

July 29, 2018 Blog, News
From 2008 to 2016, international activists have sailed 31 boats to challenge the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza. (Photo: ActiveStills.org)

A boat loaded with aid for residents in the besieged Gaza Strip has been intercepted by Israeli naval forces.

Al Awda, carrying at least 23 people, was meant to reach the Gaza port approximately at noon local time on Sunday but was redirected instead to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

It was part of a flotilla attempting to break a 12-year-old blockade imposed on the Strip by Israel and neighboring Egypt.

With 16 different nationalities on board, including some Israeli citizens, Al Awda set off from the coast of Palermo in Italy a week ago.

Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Ashdod, said the Israeli army confirmed intercepting a boat that departed from Europe in order to “violate the legal naval blockade that is imposed on the Gaza Strip”.

Although they expected the interception to happen, those on board noted they sailed “as a symbolic means of drawing international attention to the plight of 1.8 million people living in Gaza under that siege,” Stratford said.

He added:

“We know the boat was carrying around $50,000 worth of medical equipment.”

The organizers of the voyage, called Break the Siege committee, condemned in a statement Israel’s interception, demanding that the governments of the people on board take immediate action.

The Israeli army said in a statement it had monitored and intercepted the vessel in accordance with international law, and that any humanitarian assistance that the boat was carrying would be delivered to Gaza.

The journey by Al Awda was the latest in a series of bids aimed at reaching the Strip.

In 2010, an attempt turned deadly when Israeli soldiers stormed the Turkish Mavi Marmara flotilla, killing 10 Turkish nationals.

And in 2015, a flotilla of four boats bound for Gaza was redirected to Ashdod.

It was only in 2008 when two boats carrying 40 people successfully managed to reach the coast of Gaza. At the time, Israel’s foreign ministry said it had provided the flotilla with permission.

Earlier this month, Israel sealed off the Karam Abu Salem border crossing, the primary passageway that transfers necessities to residents of the Strip, saying it was in retaliation over Palestinians setting fire to Israeli land.

Additionally, Gaza’s 4,000 registered fishermen are prohibited by Israel from fishing past six nautical miles off the coast of the Strip, which they say is not enough space to serve some 1,000 boats.

The land, air, and naval blockade has led thousands in Gaza to protest near the fence with Israel in recent weeks. It also prompted residents to set sail from the coast of Gaza in May in a bid to break Israel’s imposed boundary.

For the first time in more than a decade, that boat, which carried at least 25 patients, students, and activists, managed to cross nine nautical miles (16 km) before four Israeli warships flanked it and redirected it to Ashdod.

(AJE, PC, Social Media)

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