European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, (ECESG) is sending a big convoy of more than 100 trucks to Gaza in early May to deliver wheelchairs, medical tools and toys, and to provide medicines that currently ran out in Gaza. The convoy will originate from many EU countries like Britain, France, Ireland, Scotland, Denmark, Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain, Germany, Italy, Austria and Norway, and convene in Milan, Italy, before its next leg via Genoa to Egypt and the Rafah crossing into Gaza.
This organization is now the third to focus on the siege of Gaza. Last fall, the Free Gaza Movement, an American effort, sent a successive progression of small boats carrying human rights dignitaries and volunteers to break the siege from the sea, and last March, a convoy of trucks sponsored by Viva Palestinia, a British group, led by MP George Galloway, entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing.
On Wednesday, 22 April 2009, the ECESG announced that its convoy would be joined by disabled Europeans in wheelchairs (above).
It’s now three years since Israel imposed the deadly siege on Gaza, which killed numerous medical patients unable to leave for appropriate care not available in Gaza. Malnutrition among children and adults continues to be reported by the UN because Israel only permits about 20% of the food needed to feed the population into Gaza. Since Israel’s invasion in December, the siege has had even more devastating effects on Gaza’s residents. Thousands of families continue to suffer. The basic infrastructure for supplying water, power and sanitation is reportedly in a devastated condition.
If you wonder why these people care, here is a message from Dr. Mads Gilbert who has worked and practiced medicine in Gaza for more than thirty years. He was one of few western observers on the ground during Israel’s January bombardment, On January 3, after an Israeli strike on a Gaza vegetable market, Gilbert sent a text message to his Norwegian and International contacts:
“They bombed the central vegetable market in Gaza city two hours ago. 80 injured, 20 killed. All came here to Shifa. Hades! We wade in death, blood and amputees. Many children. Pregnant woman. I have never experienced anything this horrible. Now we hear tanks. Tell it, pass it on, shout it. Anything. DO SOMETHING! DO MORE! We’re living in the history books now, all of us!”
It actually sounds as if Israel turned Gaza into an Iraqi scene in which dozens of innocent people were killed in a market place by suicide bombers. But that was not what it was. It was the work of a trained military using advanced American armaments to slay mothers and children. So the next time Jimmy Carter speaks of Israel’s “state terrorism,” we will know what he is talking about.
