(Credit: Illustration by L'Orient-Le Jour)
For two years, they rehearsed how to react if arrested by Israeli forces. They studied every possible scenario, memorized the extensive first aid procedures, all in pursuit of a mission never before attempted.Ultimately, they wouldn’t need any of it. On Aug. 23, 2008, after more than 30 hours at sea, the first Free Gaza Movement boat, having left Cyprus to break the Israeli blockade imposed on the Palestinian enclave since June 2007, spotted the coastline. Not that of Beirut, familiar to the activists from the 2006 war, nor Ashdod, where Israeli authorities had in vain advised them to dock. But instead, that of the forbidden land — Gaza.The handful of balloons in the colors of the Palestinian flag that the crew rushed to inflate in celebration paled in comparison to the scene awaiting the 40-odd activists. Around the port, “every inch of...
For two years, they rehearsed how to react if arrested by Israeli forces. They studied every possible scenario, memorized the extensive first aid procedures, all in pursuit of a mission never before attempted.Ultimately, they wouldn’t need any of it. On Aug. 23, 2008, after more than 30 hours at sea, the first Free Gaza Movement boat, having left Cyprus to break the Israeli blockade imposed on the Palestinian enclave since June 2007, spotted the coastline. Not that of Beirut, familiar to the activists from the 2006 war, nor Ashdod, where Israeli authorities had in vain advised them to dock. But instead, that of the forbidden land — Gaza.The handful of balloons in the colors of the Palestinian flag that the crew rushed to inflate in celebration paled in comparison to the scene awaiting the 40-odd activists. Around the port, “every...
