GALLOWAY PROTESTS ISRAEL’S ‘GENOCIDAL AGGRESSION’
COMMENTARY ARCHIVES, 10 Mar 2009
British MP arrives in Gaza with aid convoy to support Palestinian Resistance
RAFAH – British MP George Galloway arrived in Gaza Monday [Mar 9] at the head of an aid convoy to protest Israel’s "genocidal aggression" against Gaza and support the Palestinian "resistance."
The staunchly pro-Palestinian parliamentarian said he was "overwhelmed with happiness" to arrive in Gaza on the birthday of the Muslim prophet Mohammed and in the wake of Israel’s massive offensive at the turn of the year.
"I have entered Palestine many times but the most emotional of these is after the 22-day genocidal aggression against the Palestinian people," he told reporters, referring to the war that came to a halt on January 18.
He added that he planned to meet "the heroes of Palestine’s resistance, the government of Palestine, the people of Palestine."
The convoy set out from London last month but was temporarily halted in Egypt when Cairo authorities learned that it was also bearing non-medical aid destined for the impoverished coastal territory’s 1.5 million residents.
While waiting to cross in the Egyptian town of El-Arish near the border the convoy was vandalised and pelted with stones, according to organisers.
Galloway said Egyptian authorities had forced the group to send some of the aid into Gaza via Israel but that it was carried by the Egyptian Red Crescent and not accompanied by any of the convoy participants.
"I have never discussed anything with Israel in my life and I will not start now," Galloway said.
The convoy included 12 ambulances and a fire engine and carried aid worth more than one million pounds (1.4 million dollars/1.1 million euros).
Israel’s war on Gaza killed 1,330 Palestinians, mainly civilians, and wounded 5,450 others.
Among the dead were 437 children, 110 women, 123 elderly men, 14 medics and four journalists.
The wounded include 1,890 children and 200 people in serious condition.
The war also left tens of thousands of houses destroyed, while their residents remained homeless in the winter cold.
Israel, which wants to crush any Palestinian liberation movement, responded to Hamas’s win in the elections with sanctions, and almost completely blockaded the impoverished coastal strip after Hamas seized power in 2007, although a ‘lighter’ siege had already existed before.
Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”
A group of international lawyers and human rights activists had also accused Israel of committing “genocide” through its crippling blockade of the Strip.
Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.
Fatah has little administrative say in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, and has no power in Arab east Jerusalem, both of which were illegally occupied by Israel in 1967.
Israel also currently occupies the Lebanese Shabaa Farms and the Syrian Golan Heights.
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