Israel Releases Lebanese Gaza Boat Activists

By SANA ABDALLAH

AMMAN -- After seizing a Lebanese boat carrying activists, journalists and tons of humanitarian aid to Gaza, the Israeli authorities expelled the Lebanese passengers by sending them back to their country.

The first Lebanese ship that sought to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza ignored Israeli navy vessels and warning shots that tried to steer the boat away from nearing the shores of the Gaza Strip.

When the boat insisted on reaching its destination shortly after midnight Thursday, Israeli soldiers stormed the Togolese-flagged ship, Tali, reportedly beat up some of the passengers, bound them, and towed the vessel to an Israeli military port in Ashdod.

The boat, with 18 crew and passengers, was carrying 60 tons of medical supplies, food, books and toys for Gaza, which has been living under a paralyzing Western-backed Israeli blockade since Hamas seized control of the narrow strip in June 2007.

Organized by the Lebanese group, End the Blockade of Gaza, the boat – dubbed "Brotherhood Ship" to connote solidarity with the Palestinians – originally set sail from the northern port of Tripoli on Tuesday toward Cyprus, where the supplies were transferred to another ship before heading toward Gaza.

The Lebanese authorities said the boat was thoroughly searched before sailing from Tripoli and again searched in Cyprus to confirm it was transporting only humanitarian aid.

Nevertheless, the Israeli military cited "security concerns" for intercepting the solidarity ship and later admitted it was not carrying any weapons. Israel said it would send the aid to Gaza.

However, the seizure of the Brotherhood in international waters raised a political storm, with Lebanon and the Arab League strongly condemning the move as "an illegal act of piracy" and declared its passengers as prisoners or hostages.

Passengers onboard said the boat was in Egyptian waters when the Israelis intercepted it, but this was not independently confirmed.

Israel declared Gaza's coastal territory a closed military zone when it launched a massive war on the strip on Dec. 27, an offensive that last 23 days and left more than 1,300 Palestinians killed, most of them civilians. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians died in combat and from Palestinian militant rocket fire.

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said it was "no surprise for Israel to perpetrate such an action as it has been accustomed to ignoring international resolutions and values."

Arab League representative at the United Nations, Yahya Mahmassani, asked U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to quickly intervene and demanded an international condemnation. "The world community should condemn this act of piracy committed by Israel," he said.

Aboard the Brotherhood were Lebanese reporters and cameramen from the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera news channel and pan-Arab nationalist Lebanese Al-Jadeed TV (New TV), in addition to Lebanese activists.

Also onboard was the former Greek Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem, Monsignor Hilarion Capucci, who was deported from Jerusalem in the mid-1970s after serving time in an Israeli prison for affiliation with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Capucci, 84, was not among those who were handed over to U.N. peacekeeping forces in southern Lebanon early Friday, and was expected to be expelled to Syria through the Golan Heights, along with other Syrians who were on the boat.

Upon her arrival in the Lebanese southern town of Naqoura, Al-Jazeera reporter Salam Khodr said that after firing bullets at the boat, 30 Israeli soldiers stormed it, beat up some of the passengers, blindfolded them and bound their hands before interrogating them.

She charged that soldiers kicked 60-year-old Hani Suleiman Lebanese coordinator of the campaign, Hani Suleiman, in the chest and back although they were told the man had heart problems.

"One female soldier said to us, 'You should have thought about his health condition before you attempted to come and break the siege on Gaza,'" Khodr recounted on Al-Jazeera.

Al-Jadeed TV said the soldiers broke then confiscated the camera equipment onboard.

Israel denied using violence or having fired at the boat, whose fate remains unknown.

But Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on Thursday made it clear that Israel will no longer tolerate attempts to breach the blockade on Gaza, saying that the seizure of the Brotherhood ship was to prove that "things will be done differently" from now on, since "the equation has now changed" in the aftermath of the 23-day war.

The international, non-violent Free Gaza Movement – a group of Western, Palestinian and Israeli human rights activists – was the first to launch the concept of seeking to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza by sailing boats from Cyprus to the strip without Israeli permission for the first time since 1967.

In August 2008, the organization sent the first boat carrying activists and humanitarian aid to Gaza "to raise international awareness about the prison-like closure of the Gaza Strip and pressure the international community to review its sanctions policy, and its support for continued Israeli occupation," according to the movement's Web site, www.freegaza.org.

Lebanese activists emulated the move by organizing the Brotherhood ship. Aid coordinator of the Lebanese End the Blockade on Gaza, Maen Bashour, said the Israeli "hijacking" of the boat will not deter the Lebanese from sending more vessels to Gaza.

Commentators say the saga of the Brotherhood ship may have ended with the release of its passengers, but the continued blockade on the impoverished Gaza Strip is expected to draw more solidarity boats to sail the Mediterranean waters to try to defy the Israeli blockade.