Gaza/Tel Aviv - Foreign activists on board an aid ship
Tuesday ignored orders by the Israeli Navy to turn around, sparking a
stand-off some 40 kilometres off the Gaza coast.
The ship of the international, pro-Palestinian Free Gaza movement
and carrying a symbolic amount of medical supplies, toys, and
reconstruction kits, departed from Larnaca Port in Cyprus early
Monday.
But when it arrived off the shores of Gaza before dawn Tuesday,
it was surrounded by Israeli gunboats, which ordered it to turn
around.
Free Gaza charged in a press release that the Israel Navy
threatened to open fire and began blocking its GPS, radar and
navigation systems when the ship, dubbed The Spirit of Humanity,
refused the orders.
The jamming, it charged, was in violation of international
maritime law, threatening the welfare of the ship.
Israel Foreign Ministry Spokesman Yigal Palmor replied that it was
the ship which broke international maritime law, because it reported
Egypt's Port Said as its destination when it departed from Cyprus,
and then changed its destination to Gaza mid-way through the journey.
He said the Israel Navy had warned the activists against entering
the waters off the coast of Gaza, stating it was the Israeli military
which was responsible for enforcing security in the area.
He said Israel would have to weigh how to proceed if the ship
continued to ignore its orders to turn around.
By early Tuesday afternoon, the ship was some 24 nautical miles,
or some 44 kilometres, off the Gaza coast, as two Israeli naval
vessels continued to flank it.
The crew on board numbers 21 activists from 11 different
countries, including Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead
Maguire, 65, a fierce pro-Palestinian campaigner, and former US
Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, 54, the unsuccessful 2008 Green Party
presidential candidate.
Huwaida Arraf, the Palestinian-American chairwoman of the Free
Gaza movement, said her ship had received security clearance from the
Cyprus Port Authorities before its departure. She called Israel's
blockade of Gaza 'an act of collective punishment and a blatant
violation of international law.'
Israel imposed its stringent blockade on the coastal salient in
response to a surge in rocket attacks from Gaza at its southern towns
and villages and after the radical Islamist Hamas seized sole control
of the strip in June 2007.
Since last summer, Free Gaza has protested the blockade by sending
ships to Gaza on eight different occasions.
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