Lifeline 4

[mickyv]

"Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez may join one of the next “humanitarian” flotilla headed for Gaza. Lebanese newspaper As-Safir reported Monday that the aid convoy “Lifeline 4” will leave for Gaza after the British parliamentary elections in May, and will have Chavez on deck, along with well known anti-apartheid activists from South Africa.

The newspaper quotes Kevin Ovenden, an aide to anti-Israel MP George Galloway, as saying that in two months’ time, even before the next Lifeline convoy sets off, several other aid ships will leave Mediterranean ports for Gaza.

The ships will set off for Gaza in March, in a convoy initiated by a Hamas terror activist who received political asylum in Britain. The man, Muhammad Sualha, stated in a pro-Hizbullah website that the convoy will include six or seven ships that will depart from Turkey, Greece and Cyprus simultaneously.

“This time we want a direct confrontation with the Zionist enemy,” he explained. Sualha was a propaganda liaison for Hamas in Judea, Samaria and Gaza in the 90s.

The Lifeline 3 convoy reached Gaza January 6 after long delays, organized violence and clashes with Egyptian security forces. A Hamas-sponsored riot in support of the convoy culminated in the fatal shooting of an Egyptian border guard by a Hamas sniper. Galloway and other members of the convoy were deported from Egypt and the Egyptian government declared that the British MP was no longer welcome in the country. No similar convoys would be allowed to pass through Egypt in the future, Egypt said."

http://www.politicaltheatrics.net/2010/01/hugo-chavez-may-join-gaza-flotilla/

[modern]

I'm surprised a Hamas 'terror activist' would get political asylum in Britain?

[faceless]

Egypt to seal sea border with Gaza
7 February 2010
PressTV

Cairo has ordered a port to be built at its maritime border with the Gaza Strip, a security official was quoted by AFP as saying. The security boats there would then "prevent all future attempts to smuggle Palestinian contraband," he added. The surveillance multiplies the restrictions Cairo has placed along the terrestrial border at a time when the coastal sliver of 1.5-million population continues to suffer from an all-out Israeli-imposed blockade which has deprived it of its basic necessities for almost three years.

Egypt has kept shut the Rafah border crossing — the sliver's only border that bypasses Israel — claiming that the border post is an Egyptian-Israeli crossing and should not be used without Tel Aviv's permission. The Egyptian government is additionally building a steel wall along the Gaza border to prevent the trafficking of any goods into the strip.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said late last month that "fortifications along our eastern border are a work of Egyptian sovereignty, and we refuse to enter into a debate with anyone [about them]." Egypt has also banned all relief convoys from using its territory to enter Gaza after causing numerous complications for the high-profile Viva Palestina convoy, which had departed for the enclave headed by British member of parliament George Galloway.

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I wasn't aware before reading this that Egypt's reason for keeping the Rafah crossing closed is that it's supposedly an Israeli crossing! I'm guessing this is to do with when Israel was occupying the area, but they moved out about a few years back.

[mickyv]

Nice one Faceless, as I actually read that report yesterday & didn't take that in !

Somebody should tell Mubarak that Israel are busy telling the World that since their "withdrawal", they are no longer in occupation of Gaza.

I guess that all this sudden sea closing business is in anticipation of the planned aid convoys boats; so it seems that it could end up with the Egyptian Navy doing the Israelis dirty work again.

[major.tom]

Not to downplay Egypt's role in the siege of Gaza, but as I recall one of the conditions (read "back room deals") made at the time of the Israeli "withdrawal" from Gaza was that video cameras would be placed at the Rafah crossing so that Israel could rubber-stamp all traffic in and out. This effectively gives them control of the Egypt/Gaza border and a complete stranglehold on the people stuck in this open-air prison.

Egypt could (and should) grow a pair and tell Israel and the U.S. that 4 years of starvation and bombardment is enough and from this point forward Egypt and Gaza's government have autonomy over the Rafah crossing. But, as GG might put it, they don't have the bottle.

[faceless]

thanks Major, that makes (despicable) sense.