Freedom flotilla boat sets sail to France from Brighton

By Ahmet Gurhan Kartal

LONDON (AA) - ‘Freedom’, one of the vessels of a flotilla traveling from Sweden to Palestine to break an 11-year blockade by Israel on Gaza, left the British port of Brighton on Friday.

‘Freedom’, which remained anchored at the Shoreham Harbor since Tuesday was waved off to French port of La Rochelle by a group of local activists.

The flotilla crew and activists held various activities in Brighton for the past three days to raise awareness about the inhuman blockade on Gaza.

“We British people here and the different communities support the Freedom Flotilla and we ask our government in the UK to stop supporting Israelis and stand with the oppressed people, the Palestinians,” Zaher Birawi, a British Palestinian journalist and one of the organizers of the international campaign, told Anadolu Agency on Tuesday.

“It is the first time that an international freedom flotilla boat challenging the illegal blockade in Gaza is coming to an English port,” James Godfrey, spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said.

Under the slogan "Right to a Just Future for Palestine", the boats of the flotilla will stop at a number of European ports including in Denmark, Britain, Italy, Spain and Greece before their last leg to Gaza.

By the end of 2016, 1.3 million Gazans were depending on international aid in order to survive while nearly half of the families in Gaza lacked access to secure food supplies, according to the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Every year for eight years now, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition has been launching a new campaign to challenge the blockade.

On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish activists in the Mavi Marmara boat convoy in international waters. The convoy, which was part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, was headed for Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid. Another activist later succumbed to his injuries.