Free Gaza Movement ship arrives in Gaza Port today

(GAZA, 9 December 2008) - The Free Gaza Movement ship “Dignity” successfully broke through the Israeli blockade for the fourth time since August, arriving in Gaza Port at 2:45pm, Tuesday 9 December. The ship carried one ton of medical supplies and high-protein baby formula, in addition to a delegation of international academics, humanitarian and human rights workers. Three earlier missions made landfall in Gaza in August, October, and November through the power of non-violent direct action and civil resistance. The Free Gaza ships are the first international ships to reach the Gaza Strip in over 41 years.

Ewa Jasiewicz, a Free Gaza organizer, journalist, and solidarity worker, pointed out that, “Tomorrow is International Human Rights Day, and it's high time the world turned its rhetoric on human rights into reality. We mounted this mission to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine and to highlight the strangulating conditions Israel causes in besieged Gaza. The inhumane effects of this siege threaten to stunt an entire generation - both in terms of physical and mental growth due to malnutrition, terrorization by bomb attacks, incursions and the use of sonic booms - but also in terms of the generation of students which have won places at academic institutions around the world but cannot fulfill them, and those undermined on the ground in Gaza by a lack of food, medicine, electricity, materials, and the peace and space to make use of them in.”

For over two years, Israel has imposed an increasingly severe blockade on Gaza, dramatically increasing poverty and malnutrition rates among the 1.5 million human people who live in this tiny, costal region. The World Bank recently warned that the entire banking system in Gaza may soon collapse resulting in “serious humanitarian implications.” Already, over eighty percent of Gazan families are dependent on international food aid in order to feed their children.

Lubna Masarwa, another Free Gaza organizer and the current delegation’s leader, pointed out that, “The Palestinians of Gaza don't need charity. What they need is effective political action that changes their lives and ends the Occupation. We can't bring electricity to Gaza on our boats. We can't import freedom of movement or safety. But we can get into Gaza and we are intent to keep coming. We will come again and again and again until the world breaks its silence and we shatter this siege once and for all.”

Some figures

Under the Oslo Accords signed in 1994, Gaza's fishermen were permitted to go 20 nautical miles out to sea. Following the outbreak of the second Palestinian uprising, or Intifadah, in 2000, the capture of an Israeli soldier and the takeover of the territory by the Islamic resistance organisation Hamas, Israel limited this to six nautical miles on grounds of security.
...

The UN estimates that a distance of 12-15 nautical miles off Gaza is the minimum required to access the larger shoals of fish for maximum economic benefit.

Due to over-fishing in shallow waters, the stocks of smaller fish closer to shore have almost been depleted without having the chance to reproduce. The more lucrative shoals of tuna are also found further out.

The cost of one fishing trip can vary between 125 and 625 dollars, depending on the size of the vessel, nets and crew, and many fishermen cannot cover their costs from the resulting catch. They have no option but to remain on shore.

Collectively, Palestinian fishermen saw their monthly catch drop from 823 tonnes in June 2000 to as low as 50 tonnes in late 2006, according to the UN.

At the end of the nineties, Gaza's fishing industry was worth about 10 million dollars annually, and represented four percent of the Palestinian gross domestic product. Some of the fish was exported, while the rest sustained the local market.

Between 2001 and 2006 this income was almost halved. Today, impoverished and unemployed Gazans, suffering malnutrition and without access to adequate medical supplies, are forced to import fish from Israel.

extracted from an article by Mel Frykberg for IPS