‘All countries must protect their nationals on board the Freedom Flotilla’

Chairman of the International Committee for Breaking the Siege of Gaza, Zaher Birawi, has called on all countries with citizens on board the Freedom Flotilla to protect the lives of their nationals and ensure the delivery of medical aid and fishing boats to the besieged Gaza Strip.

In a press statement issued yesterday, Birawi condemned the Israeli aggression on the flotilla ships in international waters  which saw activists arrested and medical supplies seized.

“The legal committee and lawyers of the Freedom Flotilla will do everything necessary to ensure the participants’ safety and their release,” he said.

Birawi stressed that the Israeli navy forces’ interception of the ships in international waters is “piracy in violation of international laws, and an aggression on peaceful activists who do not constitute any threat to the occupying power”.

The Gaza Strip has enduring an 12-year Israeli siege which has limited electricity supplies and the delivery of vital medicines, leaving residents struggling to survive. The UN has warned that Gaza could become “uninhabitable” by 2020.

Freedom Flotilla sails off from Italy heads to Gaza