Israeli forces continued to use excessive force against peaceful protesters, wounding 36 civilians with live bullets and shrapnel in addition to other injuries in the upper body due to direct targeting with rubber bullets and tear gas canisters. Thousands of civilians took part in this week’s peaceful protests entitled: “For our Prisoners in Israeli Jails and al-Aqsa Mosque,” raising the Palestinian flag and chanting national slogans.
For more than a decade, Israel and Egypt have blockaded the Gaza Strip, by land, air and sea. For most of that decade, the US Boat to Gaza Campaign has been sailing with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, in solidarity with Palestine to break the illegal blockade of Gaza. During Gaza’s Great March of Return, Israeli forces have killed at least 267 people and wounded nearly 15,000 more. Gaza will very soon be uninhabitable. Innocent women, children and men will soon have even less access to clean drinking water, food and other essentials of life. Our governments remain complicit in this crime.
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We Need Your Support
The situation in Gaza is unimaginable to most North Americans. Lack of clean drinking water affects almost two million people. The effects of trauma on this population, including those who have been protesting during the Great March of Return, are immeasurable.
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla will sail again in the summer of 2020 to break the illegal Israeli naval blockade of Gaza and bring international attention to the bravery of the Palestinians who participate in the Great Return March.
This year, as we plan for our 2020 Flotilla, we are focusing on children and youth in Gaza. We will be reaching out to individuals and organizations who can help us raise awareness about this human-made humanitarian crisis and our responsibility for it. And, as always, we will be holding our government accountable for their complicity in Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.
Our work is not finished and we all need to continue until Palestine is free.
Together, we can help end the blockade!
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TSHIRTS!!