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Jewish activists set sail for Gaza

A boat with nine Jewish activists aboard sets sail from Famagusta harbor in the Turkish-occupied north of ethnically divided Cyprus in a bid to breach the Israeli naval blockade of Gaza on Sunday. (Associated Press)
Menalaos Hadjicostis Associated Press

FAMAGUSTA, Cyprus – A boat carrying Jewish activists from Israel, Germany, the U.S. and Britain set sail on Sunday for Gaza, hoping to breach Israel’s naval blockade there.

Richard Kuper, an organizer with the British group Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said one goal is to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians. Kuper said the boat, which set sail from northern Cyprus flying a British flag, won’t resist if Israeli authorities try to stop it.

The voyage by the 33-foot catamaran Irene came nearly four months after Israeli commandos boarded a flotilla of Gaza-bound ships, including the Mavi Marmara, killing eight pro-Palestinian Turkish activists and a Turkish American.

Irene passenger Rami Elhanan, an Israeli whose daughter Smadar was killed in a suicide bombing at a shopping mall in Jerusalem in 1997, said it was his “moral duty” to act in support of Palestinians in Gaza because reconciliation was the surest path to peace.

“Those 1.5 million people in Gaza are victims exactly as I am,” Elhanan, 60, said in an interview.

Alison Prager, another Jews for Justice for Palestinians organizer, said many Jews have been on previous “blockade-busting trips” to Gaza, but this was the first time Jewish groups have banded together to send a boat of their own.

In Jerusalem, Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Andy David called the latest protest boat “a provocative joke that isn’t funny.”

“It’s unfortunate that there are all kinds of organizations involved in provocations that contribute nothing and certainly don’t contribute to any kind of agreement,” David said.

Yousef Rizka, an official with Hamas, the Islamic militant group that controls Gaza, said: “The government has received Jewish activists arriving to Gaza before. The government positively views all attempts to break the siege on Gaza.”

After the international backlash over the Mavi Marmara attack, Israel eased its blockade on commercial goods, but it maintains tight restrictions on construction materials, exports and on the movement of Gazans.