Significant change in plan for December’s Gaza aid convoy

by Grant Morgan
Co-organiser of Kia Ora Gaza
13 October 2011

Almost three years ago Israel’s military onslaught in Gaza, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, killed over 1,400 mostly civilian Palestinians and laid waste to the coastal enclave.

Today, most Gazan families suffer from mass unemployment, medical shortages, polluted water, devastated housing, continual Israeli attacks and other dire conditions.

 Worst of all, Gaza’s 1.5 million population remains imprisoned by an illegal and cruel Israeli blockade.

Kia Ora Gaza is sending a four-person Kiwi Team on the sixth Gaza aid convoy organised by UK charity Viva Palestina. This multinational convoy aims to enter Gaza on the third anniversary of the start of Operation Cast Lead, 27 December.

“It is our intention with this convoy to try to increase the aid element,” says Viva Palestina in a statement issued yesterday. “We are also taking into account the fluid situation that has developed since the start of the Arab Spring and the fall of Mubarak.

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“We are announcing therefore a significant change in the form that the convoy will take this time. Rather than travelling from London through Europe as before, we intend to purchase all aid and vehicles in Egypt itself.”

All volunteers, including our Kia Ora Gaza team, will travel to Egypt and join the convoy in Cairo on a date to be confirmed by Viva Palestina over the next few weeks.

This change in plan will play well with the Egyptian democracy movement which is hugely supportive of Gaza’s call to break the Israeli siege. It should help December’s convoy link up with Cairo’s democracy activists so there is a combined push to permanently open Egypt’s Rafah crossing with Gaza. 

If the Rafah Gate can be swung open to all people and goods going in and out of Gaza, then the Israeli siege will be mortally wounded. That would be the most fitting response by the world’s humanitarians on the third anniversary of Operation Cast Lead.

Your donations can bring us closer to this objective. Kia Ora Gaza has launched a $50,000 Gaza Appeal to fund our Kiwi convoyers and their aid to suffering Palestinians. Please donate generously to our moral and historic mission.

Go to the sidebar of kiaoragaza.net to see how to donate.