Jordanian, Arab activists conclude Gaza mission

By Mohammad Ben Hussein

AMMAN - Jordanian and Arab activists, who were part of the humanitarian aid convoy Flotilla 5, left the Gaza Strip yesterday and were expected to arrive in the Kingdom late Sunday, according to officials from the Professional Associations Council (PAC).

The convoy included trucks laden with food and medicine, as well as medical supplies donated by Jordan Medical Association members, which the group handed over to Hamas.

The activists also held talks on the humanitarian situation in the coastal enclave, according to PAC Spokesperson Alaa Bourqan.

Association officials said they had prepared a welcome reception at the Professional Associations Complex to greet the activists after what they described as a"difficult” trip to Gaza.

"The activists had been trying to enter Gaza for months and were prevented from going there through Aqaba. They were forced to travel to Syria and join other activists before embarking on their solidarity journey," Bourqan said, in reference to Egypt's refusal to allow the activists head to Gaza via the port city.

Earlier this month, around 100 activists headed to the Syrian port of Lattakia on the Mediterranean, from where they sailed to Al Arish in Egypt, the port designated to receive aid for Gaza

Arab nationals from Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman accompanied Jordanian activists, according to Bourqan.

Several Islamist leaders were among the delegates, including former Islamic Action Front (IAF) MP Azzam Huneidi and Wael Saqa, former president of the Jordan Engineers Association and president of the Gaza aid committee.

Bourqan said the activists will be flown to Amman on a charter plane hired by the PAC.

"They are currently crossing the borders between Gaza and Egypt and should be flying to Amman in the early evening," he told The Jordan Times.

Members of delegation visited Jordan’s field hospital in Gaza, which was deployed in January last year, to express support for their efforts in helping Gazans, according to Bourqan.

Meanwhile, the Islamist movement, represented by its political arm the IAF, said it will continue to collect aid to send to Gaza in the hope of generating regional momentum to break the blockade on the Hamas-controlled coastal enclave.

Since the Israeli blockade on Gaza started in 2007, the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization has sent some 90 convoys to the strip, carrying over $33 million worth of aid.

Israel began to ease its restrictions earlier this year, allowing in all purely civilian goods, after an international outcry over a May 31 commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in which nine Turkish activists were killed.

25 October 2010

Source: The Jordan Times.
Link: http://jordantimes.com/?news=31246.

Ovenden: Lifeline 6 to be organized soon

25-10-2010

GAZA - The delegates of the Lifeline 5 aid convoy left Gaza Strip afternoon Sunday after a three-day visit during which they delivered mainly medical assistance to the tune of five million dollars.

Director of the convoy Kevin Ovenden told a press conference before leaving Gaza that Viva Palestina plans to organize Lifeline 6 aid convoy with the participation of more international institutions and societies, adding that it would also participate in sea convoys to Gaza.

Referring to the number of lifeline 5 members, he said that Gaza was sending 342 ambassadors to defend its cause.

For his part, the head of the Algerian delegation Abdulrazak Al-Maqri said that the delegates attended a three-day training course in breaking the siege during their stay in the Strip.

Source: Ezzedeen AL-Qassam Brigades.
Link: http://www.qassam.ps/news-3656-Ovenden_Lifeline_6_to_be_organized_soon.html.

Gaza: Brigade fires mortar shells at Israeli force

GAZA CITY (Ma’an) -- Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of Islamic Jihad, claimed responsibility Sunday for firing four mortar shells toward an Israeli force in Al-Qarara, south of Gaza City, a statement read.

The brigades said the mortar shelling targeted a force penetrating the Abu Thahir area east of Al-Qarara and assured of "their right to resist any Israeli aggression against the Palestinians and to continue the jihad until the Palestinian territories are liberated."

An Israeli military spokeswoman confirmed the fire and said one of the shells landed in Israeli territory, with no reports of damage or injury.

Source: Maan News Agency.
Link: http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=327207.

Flotilla Justice Group launched in Qatar

25 October 2010

DOHA: Following on international efforts to secure justice for victims of the May 31 Israeli attack on Freedom Flotilla, the Flotilla Justice Group was launched in Doha yesterday at a meeting of legal experts from various parts of the world.

The Group will coordinate legal efforts on behalf of the flotilla victims. Seventy legal experts and lawyers from over 20 countries attended the two-day meeting sponsored by the Doha-based Al Fakhoora, an international campaign committed to providing and expanding access to education for students in Gaza.

The conference was a continuation of the lawyers' meeting held in Istanbul on July 15.

"The Flotilla Justice Group" was established as the primary outcome of the conference, and will serve as a coordination mechanism for facilitating communication and the exchange of information between lawyers working on behalf of victims around the world.

The conference also crafted a media strategy for supporting the flotilla campaign. In a separate workshop, the legal representatives for the dozens of passengers effected in the May 31 attack formalized plans to support one another's cases in national courts, both regionally and internationally.

Organizations and firms participating in the conference included: the Turkish İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetleri İnsani Yardım Vakfı (IHH), the Free Gaza Movement, European Campaign to End Siege on Gaza (ECESG), Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU), the Ship to Gaza Sweden, the Ship to Gaza Greece, the Organization for Human Rights and Solidarity for Oppressed People (MAZLUMDER), the Elmadag Law Firm from Turkey, the UK-based Hickman and Rose law firm, Boye-Elbal Associates, Indonesian Muslims' Lawyer Team, and the Muslim Lawyers Association of South Africa.

Al Fakhoora director Farooq Burney said, "As long as the Israeli blockade of Gaza continues, education will suffer. As such, Al Fakhoora fully supports the legal efforts that have been undertaken on the national, regional and international levels to protect the humanitarian activists working to bring vital supplies to the 1.5 million civilians there."

© The Peninsula 2010

Source: Zawya.
Link: http://www.zawya.com/story.cfm/sidZAWYA20101025040901.

Tony Blair's sister-in-law Lauren Booth converts to Islam after a 'holy experience' in Iran

24th October 2010

Tony Blair’s sister-in-law has converted to Islam after having a ‘holy experience’ in Iran.

Broadcaster and journalist Lauren Booth, 43 - Cherie Blair’s half-sister - said she now wears a hijab head covering whenever she leaves her home, prays five times a day and visits her local mosque ‘when I can’.

She decided to become a Muslim six weeks ago after visiting the shrine of Fatima al-Masumeh in the city of Qom.

‘It was a Tuesday evening and I sat down and felt this shot of spiritual morphine, just absolute bliss and joy,’ she told The Mail on Sunday.

When she returned to Britain, she decided to convert immediately.

‘Now I don’t eat pork and I read the Koran every day. I’m on page 60. I also haven’t had a drink in 45 days, the longest period in 25 years,' she said.

'The strange thing is that since I decided to convert I haven’t wanted to touch alcohol, and I was someone who craved a glass of wine or two at the end of a day.’

Refusing to discount the possibility that she might wear a burka, she said: ‘Who knows where my spiritual journey will take me?’

Before her awakening in Iran, she had been ‘sympathetic’ to Islam and has spent considerable time working in Palestine. ‘I was always impressed with the strength and comfort it gave,’ she said of the religion.

Miss Booth, who works for Press TV, the English-language Iranian news channel, has been a vocal opponent of the war in Iraq.

In August 2008 she traveled to Gaza by ship from Cyprus, along with 46 other activists, to highlight Israel’s blockade of the territory.

She was subsequently refused entry into both Israel and Egypt.

In 2006 she was a contestant on the ITV reality show I’m A Celebrity .  .  . Get Me Out Of Here!, donating her fee to the Palestinian relief charity Interpal.

She said she hoped her conversion would help Mr Blair change his presumptions about Islam.

During her visit to Iran last month, Booth wrote a public letter to Mr Blair asking him to mark Al-Quds (Jerusalem) day - a protest at Israel's occupation of Palestine.

The missive was a bitter attack on the former Prime Minister, who is now a Middle East envoy working for peace in the troubled region.

'The men, women and children around me withstood a day of no water and no food (it’s called Ramadan, Tony, it’s a fast),' Booth wrote.

'Coping with hunger and thirst in the hundred degrees heat, as if it were nothing. They can withstand deprivation in the Muslim world.

'Here in Iran they feel proud to suffer in order to express solidarity with the people of Palestine. It's kind of like the way you express solidarity with America only without illegal chemical weapons and a million civilian deaths.'

She adds: 'Your world view is that Muslims, are mad, bad, dangerous to know. A contagion to be contained.

'In the final chapter [of his autobiography] you say we need a "religious counter attack" against Islam. And by "Islam" you mean the Al Quds rallies, the Palestinian intifada (based on an anti Apartheid struggle Tony, NOT religious bigotry), against every Arab who fails to put their arms in the air as the F16 missiles rain on their homes and refugee camps and sing a rousing chorus of ‘Imagine all the people...’

Booth moved to France with her family - husband Craig Darby and two daughters Alexandra and Holly in 2004.

Her husband was seriously injured in a motorcycle accident in April 2009 when he was drunk and not wearing a helmet.

He suffered a severe brain injury, a fractured neck, damage to his spine and several broken ribs and was in a deep coma for two weeks.

The 42-year-old had to learn how to walk and talk again. He lost much of his memory, has sight problem and cannot work.

The couple decided to move back to Britain to help his recovery and reduce the amount of time Booth has to work away from home.

Booth took part in I'm A Celebrity... Get Met Out of Here! in 2006 alongside Myleene Klass and Jason Donovan, finishing ninth.

Of her relationship with the Blairs, she said at the time: 'I'm happy to criticize them politically if they deserve it but that on a personal level we get on fine.'

Mr Blair was famously told not to 'do God' by his spin doctor Alistair Campbell while he was Prime Minister.

But on leaving office, he converted to Catholicism after starting to go to Mass - saying later that it was his wife who spurred his decision.

He said last year that it was like 'coming home' and is now 'where my heart is, where I know I belong'.

Source: Mail Online.
Link: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1323278/Tony-Blairs-sister-law-Lauren-Booth-converts-Islam-holy-experience-Iran.html.