"The first Asian humanitarian convoy to break Israel's siege of the Gaza Strip by taking relief supplies to the coastal sliver has reached Lebanon.
Currently joined by activists of 15 different nationalities, the Asian People's Solidarity with Palestine convoy, also known as Asia 1, began its journey from India and traveled through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and Syria before arriving in Lebanon.
The activists say they want to display solidarity with the Palestinian people in their resistance against Israel.
Tel Aviv has been enforcing an all-out land, aerial and naval blockade on the 1.5 million Palestinians in the enclave since mid-June 2007.
The mission has been welcomed by Khaled Mashaal, the political leader of the Palestinian resistance movement of Hamas, as well as Ramadan Abdullah, the leader of the Palestinian group of Islamic Jihad.
. . . .
A seven-member delegation of Iranian lawmakers joined the mission while it was in the Syrian capital, Damascus.
The convoy plans to enter Gaza later in the month on the anniversary of the launch of the 22-day-long Israeli war on the enclave, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians.
There are fears that the mission might be fiercely confronted by Israel's military, which killed nine Turkish activists aboard Freedom Flotilla, an Ankara-backed humanitarian convoy, on May 31.
However, an Indian activist with the mission told Press TV, 'We are completely non-violent. We do not have weapons.'
In case of an attack, 'We will face it with non-violence. We'll face it with a prayer in our hearts,' he added."
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/156852.html
"An all-out land, aerial and naval blockade on the 1.5 million Palestinians in the enclave"? Peculiar how the article avoids reference to Gaza's common border with Egypt and the truckloads of goods entering Gaza each day from Israel. In 2009, 30,920 truckloads of food, construction materials and educational supplies entered Gaza from Israel, and after an Israeli Cabinet decision in June 2010, the capacity of the Kerem Shalom Crossing was doubled to allow 250 truckloads to enter Gaza Strip on a daily basis. As widely acknowledged, Gazan shops are now fully stocked with Israeli merchandise, which is even giving rise to complaints among Gazan manufacturers (see: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/how-good-news-became-bad-for-gaza-2102586.html).
Even more absurd, this convoy is setting sail after Israel announced that it will allow increased exports from Gaza (see: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/gaza_blockade).
So what is the rationale for the "Asia 1" convoy?
Faced with declining popularity in Gaza and no longer making world headlines, Hamas has acted to "heat up" the border with Israel. A total of some 200 rockets and mortar rounds were fired at southern Israel from Gaza during all of 2010, and of these, 25 were fired at Israeli civilian targets over the course of a two-day period this past week (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/un-israel-hamas-seeking-to-reduce-recent-gaza-tension-1.332519). One Qassam rocket exploded next to a kindergarten in Ashkelon, wounding one child (http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4002195,00.html). Also, on December 6, an advanced Kornet anti-tank missile, smuggled into Gaza, was fired for the first time at an Israeli Merkava (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/gaza-anti-tank-missile-penetrated-idf-tank-ashkenazi-reveals-1.331848).
Will the "Asia 1" escapade pass uneventfully? Probably. However, regarding the Indian activist's "prayers in our hearts", a pity he does not contemplate:
- The ongoing attempts by Hamas to target Israeli civilians with missiles.
- The Hamas charter, which calls for the murder of all Jews, not just Israelis.
- The ongoing murder, i.e. "honor killing", of women in Gaza (see: http://articles.cnn.com/2009-07-30/world/mideast.honor.killings_1_honor-killings-gaza-human-rights?_s=PM:WORLD).
- The ongoing murder of Hamas political opponents (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/04/20/gaza-hamas-should-end-killings-torture).
- The ongoing abuse of Christians in the Gaza Strip (see: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=newsarchive&sid=aC7P93EMyb1Q&refer=home).
- Death threats against gays in Gaza (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/3211772.stm).
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