Kiwi Team to join another siege-busting Gaza convoy

Kia Ora Gaza's team being welcomed home in 2010 after taking part in an international aid convoy that successfully broke the cruel siege of the Palestinian enclave. In April and May 2012, another Kia Ora Gaza team will be carrying on their fine effort. The practical support of Kiwi humanitarians is essential to make their mission as hugely positive as the convoy of 2010.

by Roger Fowler

captain of the Kiwi Team to Gaza

16 February 2012

Kia Ora Gaza is sending another team of Kiwis to join the next international aid convoy to break Israel’s cruel siege on Gaza.

The Viva Palestina Arabia 6 convoy departs London on 22 April to travel through Europe and Turkey and then via Egypt to reach Gaza on 15 May, Nakba Day – the day commemorating the catastrophe in 1948 when Palestinians were forced from their land into exile and often refugee camps.

As well as calling for the right of Palestinian return, this convoy will focus on the future: a mix of vehicles will carry construction materials and equipment to help restore the schools, hospitals, homes and other infrastructure destroyed by Israeli bombings and besiegement.

In tandem with Egypt’s democracy uprising, this new convoy could crumble the Israeli blockade and open Gaza to the world. Our team of four Kiwis, who are featured on the sidebar of kiaoragaza.net, will be part of this historic international effort for peace and justice.

Until there is justice for Palestine, there can be no peace in the Middle East. And until there is peace in the Middle East, there can be no peace in the world. As Viva Palestina founder, George Galloway, puts it: “Palestine has become the touchstone for those who care about international justice the world over.”

This new aid convoy carries on the valiant siege-bustiing efforts of many international missions to break through Israel’s unrelenting land, sea and air blockade of Gaza, often called the “world’s biggest prison camp”.

This will be Kia Ora Gaza’s second international convoy. The first, in 2010, broke through the siege via Egypt with NZ$7 million of medical aid donated by people in over 30 countries.

Now we’re going back for another go – and we aim to end the siege for good. To succeed, we need your practical support. Please help us finish the last lap of our $50,000 Gaza Appeal. Go to the sidebar of kiaoragaza.net to see how to donate.

Tags: Info

New international convoy will help besieged Gaza rebuild

Two boys sit among the ruins of Gaza

by Viva Palestina Arabia

13 February 2012

Article abridged

More than three years since Israel’s Operation Cast Lead, which killed over 1,400 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the siege remains.

The changes sweeping Egypt and the Middle East bring the promise of finally lifting that blockade and of further steps to relieve the suffering of the Palestinian people. But promise alone will not end the suffering now, nor address the reasons for it.

That is why Viva Palestina Arabia is organising an aid convoy to again break the siege on Gaza. It is looking to the future. That is why it will be carrying construction equipment to rebuild the schools, clinics, public buildings and homes which have been destroyed both by Israel’s attacks and by the effects of the ongoing siege.

‘Tears of Gaza’: three kids expose the Israeli state

 

‘Tears of Gaza’ is a documentary film by Vibeke Lokkeberg.

The true face of the Israeli colonial state is seen through the eyes of three children living in the besieged enclave: Amira (left), Yehya and Rasmia.

“Lest we forget, lest our tears dry or outrage subside, and lest our hearts heal before Palestine is free, I hope this film will be shown throughout the world,” says Palestinian activist Susan Abulhawa.

‘They bombed a children’s playground’: the war on Gaza

 

Lowkey: Israel, the 51st state

Kia Ora Gaza says ‘thank you’ to all supporters

A heartfelt ‘thank you’ to all supporters of Kia Ora Gaza.

Special thanks to all donors whose generosity of spirit fuels our Gaza Appeal.

Kia Ora Gaza sends you our very best wishes for the Festive Season.

Unless something big happens, there won’t be any activity on our website until the end of the holiday break on 16 January.

Grant Morgan, editor of kiaoragaza.net

Tags: Info

Drones in the shower, F-16s on the street: On leaving Gaza

by Radhika Sainath

Notes from Behind the Blockade

20 December 2011

I made the long journey out of Gaza last week. I must say, though I will miss the dozens of people who invited me into their homes, shared their stories, cooked me lunch, put up with my bad Arabic, boiled me countless glasses of rosemary tea and served me thick black coffee in petite rimless cups, I could not get out of there fast enough.

Gaza is not a pleasant place to be. The Israeli occupation smothers and suffocates, it makes one highly attuned to one’s surroundings in unnatural ways, or ways that were once natural but should no longer be.

Kia Ora Gaza films 2010′s aid convoy entry into Gaza

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Syria’s dictator weakened as 10,000 soldiers desert army

Deserters from Syria's army who have joined rebel forces

by Avi Issacharoff and Amos Harel

Israeli daily paper Haaretz

21 December 2011

article abridged

More than 10,000 soldiers have deserted the Syrian army, sources say, with as many as half the conscripts not reporting in the last three call-ups.

According to Western intelligence agencies, even though the top brass is still loyal to President Bashar Assad, lower-level officers are deserting in large numbers, and in some cases, whole units have deserted en masse.

Global March to Jerusalem, 30 March 2012

Cairo cops beat and strip woman to preserve ‘order’

State thugs go to war against protesters in Cairo

Hamas shuns violence in pact with Palestinian Authority

300,000 Hamas supporters gather in Gaza City on 14 December 2011 to mark the Islamist movement's 24th anniversary

by Phoebe Greenwood in Gaza City

The Guardian

18 December 2011

article abridged

Hamas has confirmed that it will shift tactics away from violent attacks on Israel as part of a rapprochement with the Palestinian Authority.

A spokesman for the Hamas prime minister, Ismail Haniya, told the Guardian that the Islamic party, which has controlled Gaza for the past five years, was shifting its emphasis from armed struggle to non-violent resistance.

“Violence is no longer the primary option but if Israel pushes us, we reserve the right to defend ourselves with force,” said the spokesman, Taher al-Nounu. On this understanding, he said, all Palestinian factions operating in the Gaza Strip have agreed to halt the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel.

The Palestinian connection of NZ Labour’s new leader

David Shearer, seen in 1992 in Somalia, has two decades of experience as a humanitarian aid worker, including a long stint in Palestine

by Derek Cheng

NZ Herald

17 December 2011

“He jumped up, violently jumped up, and dashed out the door,” says Mark McNeill, a friend who was with Labour leader David Shearer when Shearer was told his wife Anuschka Meyer was being held at gunpoint.

Tahrir ‘changed everything’ for Gaza crossing: official

An Egyptian boy stands above a gate reading "safe journey" near the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip

by Ma’an News Agency in Gaza City

17 December 2011

The Egyptian revolution has opened a new chapter for Gazans wishing to travel out of the blockaded strip, crossings officials say.

The southern Rafah crossing to Egypt — the only exit point for Palestinians that is not closed by Israel’s blockade – is unrecognizable from its dire past while Hosni Mubarak was in power, Gaza’s director of borders and crossings Mahir Abu Sabha told Ma’an.

“Ten years ago, the situation was so bad that students and businessmen in Gaza vowed never to come back if they could reach Egypt by the Rafah crossing,” he said.

“Everything has changed thanks to the revolution in Egypt.”

Delegates of 15 states discuss world rally for Jerusalem

by Palestinian Information Centre (PIC) in Amman, Jordan

15 December 2011

article abridged and re-edited

Delegates from 15 countries attended a meeting in Amman called by the preparatory committee for the worldwide rally to support occupied Jerusalem.

The attendees discussed ways of organising a global rally on 30 March for Jerusalem to demand an end to Israel’s ethnic cleansing of the holy city’s indigenous people.

The rally will include popular marches in three Arab countries bordering occupied Palestine. Three others will take place inside the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The meeting intends to organise marches concurrently in other parts of the world.

Zaher Berawi, a committee member responsible for organisation, told PIC that the rally would be the largest in the history of pro-Palestine demonstrations.

“This popular rally will be a milestone in the history of the conflict with the occupation,” he said.

‘Palestinians not given right to protest’: Israeli rights activist

‘We will stay here’: Bedouins uprooted by Israeli state

Book review: How Zionism paved way for permanent war

by Jimmy Johnson

The Electronic Intifada

15 December 2011

Gabriel Piterberg noted in his masterful 2008 book The Returns of Zionism: Myths, Politics and Scholarship in Israel that the “achievements of the comparative study of settler colonialism have been at once scholarly and political,” that the young field “creates a language that amounts to a transformative alternative to the way in which these settler societies narrate themselves in their own words.”

Burning conscience: Israeli occupation soldiers speak out