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The 2023 Gaza Freedom Flotilla And Global Movement For Palestinians

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s flagship vessel, The Handala, concluded the first stage of the 2023 Gaza Freedom Flotilla voyage this past week when it arrived in Oslo, Norway. According to the Coalition, The Handala has visited 12 ports in a number of European countries over the past two months carrying the Palestinian flag and raising awareness of its mission to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza. On board The Handala, TRNN contributor, lawyer, and freelance journalist Dimitri Lascaris speaks about the Flotilla and the global movement for Palestinian liberation with fellow passengers Hege Bae Nyholt, a member of the Norwegian Parliament, representing The Red Party of Norway, and Aram Zaheri, Deputy Leader of the Red Party of Norway (Oslo section).

Israeli Naval ‘Piracy’ Won’t Stop Freedom Flotilla Voyage To Gaza

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement working to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza, has launched numerous Freedom Flotilla voyages since 2008. Joel Opperdoes has served as captain for multiple Flotilla voyages, including in 2012, when his vessel was descended upon and boarded by Israeli naval forces and he and his crew were detained. TRNN contributor, lawyer, and freelance journalist Dimitri Lascaris speaks with Opperdoes aboard The Handala, the flagship vessel of the 2023 Gaza Freedom Flotilla, en route to Oslo, Norway.

The Cultural Looting Of Gaza

There needs to be a particularly high standard of cynicism and cruelty to rob destitute people. In many ways, this is what capitalism is all about. But to use the fact that people are near ruin to exploit them is as cold as it gets. People in Gaza are confined to living with few resources in what amounts to a prison. They are permitted levels of nutrition and medicine that are just enough to prevent total starvation and disease. This is only because Israel, which controls the piece of land known as the Gaza Strip, does not want disease to spread into its own borders. Israel exploits the suffering of Gazans in order to recruit collaborators and garner whatever intelligence they may be able to provide.

Israel Bombs Gaza, Lebanon After Palestinian Retaliation

Israeli warplanes bombed parts of the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon after the firing of rockets from those regions into Israel in retaliation against the apartheid regime’s savage attacks on Palestinian worshipers inside the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied city of Jerusalem. At midnight on Friday, April 7, Israeli occupation warplanes launched a series of missile strikes on various sites in the Gaza Strip, targeting a Palestinian Resistance site in the south of Gaza City, an observatory post in the east of the city, agricultural land in Al-Zeitoun neighborhood of southeastern Gaza, and other Resistance sites in the city of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza Strip and Khan Younis in the southern part of the blockaded enclave.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition Escalates Solidarity With Palestine

As the Israeli State intensifies its violence against and displacement of Palestinians from their homes, international Palestinian solidarity organizations are making new plans to challenge the illegal Israeli occupation. Clearing the FOG speaks with retired Colonel Ann Wright who recently represented the US Boats to Gaza campaign at a meeting of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition in the United Kingdom. Ann Wright has participated in five trips to confront the blockade of Gaza and deliver desperately-needed supplies, including when Israeli Occupying Forces attacked the ships and killed ten civilians. Wright talks about the new plans for 2023, the dire conditions that Palestinians experience in Gaza and what people in the United States can do considering that the US provides financial support and political cover for Israel's atrocities.

Egypt’s Repressive Regime Is Enabled By US And Allies

Rania Khalek of BreakThrough News talks about the repressive Egyptian regime and how it is enabled by the US, its European allies and Israel. She explains the role played by the Egypt as a US proxy in the region and its role in various conflicts, including the brutal siege of Gaza. She also talks about how this enables the el-Sisi regime to continue its suppression of activists and clampdown of democracy.

Gaza Freedom Flotilla To Sail In 2023

After a pause due to the global pandemic, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is set to resume its sailing to challenge the illegal, immoral and inhuman Israeli blockade of Gaza.  The last sailing of the flotilla was in 2018. The 2020 sail was postponed due to the COVID pandemic that closed many European ports. Members of the 10 national and international organization campaign coalition met in London November 4-6, 2022,  and made the decision to resume sailing in 2023.  Representatives of member campaigns from Norway, Malaysia, US, Sweden, Canada, France, New Zealand, Turkey and the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza) met in-person and by zoom.  Other members of the coalition are from South Africa and Australia.

UN Security Council Holds Emergency Meeting On Gaza Amid Fragile Truce

On Monday, August 8, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) held an emergency meeting on the situation in Gaza amid uncertainty around the fate of the truce reached the previous day after three days of Israeli aggression. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Tor Wennesland reported during the meeting that in three days, Israel had carried out 147 airstrikes which killed 46 Palestinians, including 16 children, and injured 360 more. In retaliation, Palestinian groups fired over 1,100 rockets, in which a total of 70 Israelis were lightly injured. Wennesland also noted that increased border controls imposed by Israel before the actual bombings started caused a severe fuel shortage in Gaza, leading to power cuts of up to 20 hours a day in the densely populated territory.

Gaza Death Toll Climbs To 43 Amid Ceasefire Reports

An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire is expected to go into effect at 11:30pm local time (20:30 GMT). Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced the ceasefire in a statement, adding that they have a right to “respond to any Zionist aggression.” Mondoweiss correspondent in Gaza Tareq Hajjaj reported that Israeli airstrikes were ongoing in the last hour leading up to the ceasefire. The Times of Israel reported that Israel agreed to the ceasefire, and that Egypt was working to ensure two of PIJ’s principal demands, including the release of Palestinian hunger-striking prisoner Khalil Awawdeh and recently detained PIJ leader Bassam al-Saadi. It remained unconfirmed if Israel had agreed to the PIJ demands.

Myths And Facts About The Israeli Siege On Gaza

15 years have passed since Israel imposed a total siege on the Gaza Strip, subjecting nearly two million Palestinians to one of the longest and most cruel politically-motivated blockades in history. The Israeli government had then justified its siege as the only way to protect Israel from Palestinian “terrorism and rocket attacks”. This remains the official Israeli line until this day. Not many Israelis – certainly not in government, media or even ordinary people – would argue that Israel today is safer than it was prior to June 2007.

New Documentary Trailer: Gaza Fights Back

Filmed during the attack and in the days following the ceasefire, the documentary tells the story of how Gaza’s armed resistance groups outwitted the vastly superior Israeli military and established their ability to intervene against Israeli ethnic cleansing of neighborhoods like Sheikh Jarrah and provocations at the al-Aqsa compound in occupied East Jerusalem. “The Palestinian military capabilities are not highly sophisticated and destructive, but it becomes so effective when it’s used by Palestinian smart youths who believe in their rights and freedom,” a masked al-Qassam commander says. The documentary features intimate interviews with survivors, many of whom lost family members in the Israeli bombardment. Among them is Omar Abu al-Ouf, who lost 22 family members in the bombing of his family’s house in al-Remal, Gaza’s main thoroughfare.

How Gaza Dethroned The King Of Israel

How did Benjamin Netanyahu manage to serve as Israel’s longest-serving Prime Minister? With a total of 15 years in office, Netanyahu surpassed the 12-year leadership of Israel’s founding father, David Ben Gurion. The answer to this question will become particularly critical for future Israeli leaders who hope to emulate Netanyahu’s legacy, now that his historic leadership is likely to end. Netanyahu’s ‘achievements’ for Israel cannot be judged according to the same criteria as that of Ben Gurion. Both were staunch Zionist ideologues and savvy politicians. Unlike Ben Gurion, though, Netanyahu did not lead a so-called ‘war of independence’, merging militias into an army and carefully constructing a ‘national narrative’ that helped Israel justify its numerous crimes against the indigenous Palestinians, at least in the eyes of Israel and its supporters.

Hundreds Of Palestinians Volunteer To Clean Up War-Ravaged Gaza

Hundreds of people have taken part in a volunteer campaign that aims to clear Gaza of debris left behind by a deadly 11-day Israeli assault, the Arabic news website Arabi 21 reported.

The Past is the Present in Palestine

If the United States and Israel think that normalizing relations with Arab states will weaken our national cause, they should know that this means nothing to Palestinians. The Palestinian people have learned to look only to themselves for rescue. The young Palestinians of today are brimming with rebellion. They have lost faith in the diplomatic route and are fed up with U.S. policy. Be forewarned: Nothing will contain them.

The Palestine Litmus Test

There aren’t many issues which clearly and unequivocally delineate right from wrong. The question of justice for the Palestinian people and their right to be protected by international law is one which gives no wiggle room for ifs, ands, or buts. Israel’s apartheid system is of such long standing and is so brazen that millions of people feel not only outrage but an insult to their own personal integrity and now speak up though they once demurred. The state of Israel periodically decides to bomb Gaza, evict Palestinians from their homes, or attack the al-Aqsa mosque. They have done all of those things in recent weeks, during the holy month of Ramadan and the Eid al-Fitr celebration no less. Israel continues its practice of violating international law by carrying out collective punishments against civilian populations.
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