{"id":7966,"date":"2010-10-25T00:00:19","date_gmt":"2010-10-24T22:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=7966"},"modified":"2010-10-22T04:19:33","modified_gmt":"2010-10-22T02:19:33","slug":"viva-palestina-convoy-reaches-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2010\/10\/viva-palestina-convoy-reaches-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"Viva Palestina Convoy Reaches Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pro-Palestinian activists enter Gaza through Rafah crossing with $5m of aid for residents of Israeli-blockaded strip.<\/em><\/p>\n

Pro-Palestinian activists in more than 100\u00a0cars and trucks\u00a0have crossed into the Israeli-blockaded\u00a0Gaza Strip\u00a0through Egypt’s Rafah crossing\u00a0with aid worth nearly $5m.<\/p>\n

The multinational “Viva Palestina” ship\u00a0arrived\u00a0at Egypt’s port city of al-Arish from Lattakia, Syria, earlier on Thursday [21 Oct 2010].<\/p>\n

About\u00a0300 activists then\u00a0flew into al-Arish airport and converged with the ship’s passengers before entering Gaza.<\/p>\n

The activists had initially joined up in Syria from Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, and more than two dozen other countries.<\/p>\n

The convoy, which was organised by George Galloway, a\u00a0British politician,\u00a0originally departed from London on September 18 and arrived in Syria two weeks later.<\/p>\n

The activists\u00a0then\u00a0waited for over two weeks in Lattakia for permission from the Egyptian authorities for the shipment,\u00a0which includes\u00a0medical supplies and school equipment,\u00a0to be allowed to\u00a0enter al-Arish port.<\/p>\n

The aid does not include any building materials, which the Egyptian authorities did not allow, as part of the agreement permitting the activists to enter Gaza for three days.<\/p>\n

Israel has kept Gaza under a blockade since 2007, saying it is a necessary step to stop arms reaching the Hamas group running the strip.<\/p>\n

Several dozen survivors from the Israeli attack on May 31 on\u00a0the Turkish aid ship the Mavi Marmara<\/em> were among those in the “Viva Palestina”\u00a0convoy.<\/p>\n

‘Summary executions’<\/strong><\/p>\n

Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists\u00a0when they boarded the\u00a0Mavi Marmara<\/em>, the main vessel <\/em>in a\u00a0‘Freedom\u00a0Flotilla’ also attempting to deliver aid to Gaza.<\/p>\n

Israel’s leaders said their troops opened fire in self-defence after being set upon by activists.<\/p>\n

However, a UN inquiry last month found that Israeli troops broke international law by boarding\u00a0the flotilla and found that the killings of activists on-board were comparable to “summary executions”.<\/p>\n

After an international outcry over the Mavi Marmara<\/em> raid, Israel relaxed\u00a0its embargo but construction materials remain restricted.<\/p>\n

Gazans have limited freedom of movement and Israel still enforces its naval blockade.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 aljazeera.net<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pro-Palestinian activists enter Gaza through Rafah crossing with $5m of aid for residents of Israeli-blockaded strip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7966\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}