Georgia Straight by Yves Engler June 2010.

Photo Palestinians waited at a fence for food to be distributed near the rubble of their destroyed homes in eastern Jabaliya, in northern Gaza. The area was heavily damaged during the 22-day Israeli bombing during the winter in 2008/2009.

Early Monday (May 31) on the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea, at least nine people were killed and dozens more wounded when Israeli soldiers raided a flotilla of ships carrying 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian supplies and more than 600 activists to the Gaza Strip. The activists were trying to break Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza, which has reduced food and medicine entering the tiny coastal territory to a fraction of what is needed.

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guardian.co.uk Tuesday 1 June 2010 by Dorian Jones in Istanbul and Helena Smith.

Photo Protests in Istanbul against Israeli military raid on Gaza freedom flotilla.

Survivors of the Israeli assault on a flotilla carrying relief supplies to Gaza returned to Greece and Turkey today, giving the first eyewitness accounts of the raid in which at least 10 people died.

Arriving at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport with her one-year-old baby, Turkish activist Nilufer Cetin said Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the Turkish-flagged ferry Mavi Marmara, which was the scene of the worst clashes and all the fatalities. Israeli officials have said that the use of armed force began when its boarding party was attacked.

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COSATU Press Statement. June 2010

Photo Larry Towell In Gaza Palestinians struggle to live under Israeli siege.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions is outraged at the murder by Israeli commandos’ of at least twenty people – and injuries to a further 60 – as a result of their armed attack on a convoy of ships carrying aid to the people of Gaza last night, 30 May 2010.

COSATU sends its condolences to the families and friends of those who lost their lives and calls upon the people of the world to condemn this act of Israeli state-sponsored piracy.

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1 June 2010 Amnesty International

Photo Palestinian home destroyed by Israeli missile strike.

Israel’s military blockade of Gaza has left more than 1.4 million Palestinian men, women and children trapped in the Gaza Strip, an area of land just 40 kilometres long and 9.5 kilometres wide.

Mass unemployment, extreme poverty and food price rises caused by shortages have left four in five Gazans dependent on humanitarian aid. As a form of collective punishment, Israel’s continuing blockade of Gaza is a flagrant violation of international law.

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by Robert Fisk Al Jazeera May 2010

Photo: ActiveStills Palestinians walking along the hills of historic Palestine.

Power and the media are not just about cosy relationships between journalists and political leaders, between editors and presidents. They are not just about the parasitic-osmotic relationship between supposedly honourable reporters and the nexus of power that runs between White House and state department and Pentagon, between Downing Street and the foreign office and the ministry of defence. In the western context, power and the media is about words – and the use of words.

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Al Jazeera report May 31 2010.

Photo ActiveStills Palestinian family walks along in Israeli occupied Palestine.

An international children’s rights charity has said it has evidence that Palestinian children held in Israeli custody have been subjected to sexual abuse in an effort to extract confessions from them.

The Geneva-based Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected 100 sworn affadavits from Palestinian children who said they were mistreated by their Israeli captors.

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Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)

Photo ActiveStills Palestinian boy holds flag above Israeli apartheid wall.

Ramallah, Occupied Palestine May 2010 — The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)expresses its profound appreciation for the courageous positions in support of Palestinian rightstaken by the membership of the University and College Union (UCU) at its Congress today inManchester. The UCU has again firmly and decisively established its unwavering commitment to the Palestinian civil society’s campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) againstIsrael until it complies with its obligations under international law and recognizes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

Making history in the international trade union movement in the West, UCU’s Congress also voted with an overwhelming majority to “sever all relations with Histadrut, and to urge other trade unions and bodies to do likewise.” The UCU has today confirmed its established position that it is legitimate to denounce Israel’s oppressive policies and to hold the state and its complicit institutions accountable for human rights abuses, war crimes and ethnic cleansing.

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Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) May 31st 2010.

Photo Gaza freedom flotilla departs from Istanbul, Turkey in late May.

Dear Prime Minister Harper, I am writing to you on behalf of the 54,000 members of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers. You will be aware that the Israeli navy, in an act of piracy in international waters, has hijacked the international flotilla of ships which was attempting to deliver essential humanitarian aid to Gaza. The aid includes construction materials which would enable the people of Gaza to rebuild the homes destroyed by Israel in Operation Cast Lead in 2009.

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Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate, statement May, 2010

Photo: Free Gaza boats sail over the Mediterranean Sea.

I never cease to be amazed at the power of the human spirit to survive. During my last visit to Gaza in October 2008 I was amazed and deeply moved by the power of the people I witnessed. In a triumph of hope over adversity and tremendous suffering, love still abides.

Gaza comprises a small strip of land 27 miles long and 6 miles wide. This coastal strip is bordered by Israel on the one side, the Mediterranean Sea on the other and to a lesser extent by Egypt at the southern end. With one and a half million inhabitants Gaza is the fifth most densely populated place on the planet, 50% of which are under the age of 18. Two thirds of the total population hold refugees status, and comprise the victims and their descendants of previous acts of Israeli aggression.

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3 June 2010 statement by church leaders in the Philippines on Gaza flotilla massacre.

Photo: Israeli commandos storm Mavi Marmara, the flagship of Gaza Freedom Flotilla.

“Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and
inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.”
Deuteronomy 16:20, ESV

We church leaders in the Philippines express our great shock and indignation at the act of terrorism perpetrated by the apartheid state of Israel on hundreds of international peace activists aboard the Mavi Marmara, the flagship of Gaza Freedom Flotilla, a six-vessel fleet carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

We condemn the disproportionate use of lethal force by Israeli naval commandos that killed at least ten and injured dozens of civilians armed only with sticks and metal bars and a tenacious resolve to deliver relief supplies to the besieged people of Gaza.

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