Cyprus bans all sailings to Gaza ahead of flotilla plan
NICOSIA |
NICOSIA (Reuters) - Cyprus said on Thursday it had banned all sailings to Gaza, serving notice to any pro-Palestinian activists who might use the Mediterranean island as a springboard to challenge Israel's blockade of the territory.
Activists are planning to send an aid flotilla to Gaza from ports around Europe this month, defying warnings from Israel which has tight sea and land border controls around the enclave.
There had been no suggestion that Cyprus would be used for sailings, but the Mediterranean island was the launchpad for earlier voyages to Gaza which started in 2008.
It invoked a ban last year, just before nine Turkish activists were killed in an Israeli raid on an aid convoy which triggered a crisis in already strained relations between Israel and Turkey.
Organizers say a new flotilla of 10 ships would sail for Gaza from ports around Europe on June 25.
Israel has said it will prevent any new aid flotilla approaching Gaza, warning that any challenge could have "dangerous consequences."
Activists had said in May that about 1,500 people from around 100 countries would participate in the flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid and construction materials to Gaza.
Cyprus's ban applied to locally and foreign vessels, and to individuals who may attempt to leave Cyprus and embark on a Gaza-bound vessel at sea, the island's transport ministry said in a statement.
(Writing by Michele Kambas, editing by Sonya Hepinstall)
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In three bloody weeks on December 27, 2008, during ‘operation cast lead’, white phosphorus and other weapons were used against the people of Gaza, killing 1400, the majority of whom were civilians including over 300 children, and demolishing schools, houses and public buildings.
The Likud government of Israel that exports Uzi machine guns and other munitions to regimes worldwide, and imports billions of dollars of military equipment – (including cluster bombs, rocket & grenade launchers, surface to air missiles, F15/F16 strike aircraft, aerial bombers, Apache attack helicopters, Dolphin nuclear-armed submarines, armoured personnel carriers, unmanned drones, aerial vehicles and electronic warfare equipment from the US and Europe) – wants the world to believe that its blockade of the starved, bankrupt people of Gaza, is legal in order to prevent imaginary arms shipments to a besieged enclave of 1.6 million, mainly unemployed people who are desperate for food and medicines, not guns.
This situation exists only by courtesy of the EU which continues its billions of dollars of bilateral trade with a non-European state under an Association Agreement, the existence of which is the key economic factor that keeps the Likud government in power – and the blockaded and bombed enclave of Gaza, under siege.
The international community must act!
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