In August, activists from 12 countries including America, Canada, Pakistan and Britain joined the Free Gaza movement and embarked on a journey to break the Israeli imposed blockade of Gaza, which has long been the scene of a humanitarian crisis.
The move to sail into Gaza was carried out sixty years after the Nakba - the forcible expulsion of more than 700,000 Palestinians from their lands to create Israel - and to challenge Israeli control over the open-air prison.
Israel threatened to 'use force' and stop the boats from entering the Gaza Strip. The response on the part of the volunteers of the Free Gaza movement was "sink us then, we are going anyway." Tel Aviv was therefore forced to change its decision as the move was able to garner decent media coverage.
The siege was broken and humanitarian aid onboard the boats reached the Palestinians and the besieged region home to 1.4 million Christians and Muslims. The boats sailed back to Cyprus unharmed to see a cheering crowd welcome their return. Several activists, however, stayed behind and vowed to return by land.
Activist Lauren Booth said Friday in an exclusive interview with Press TV on Friday that she expected to be allowed to enter Egypt via Rafah but was not allowed passage. She has also been denied passage through Israel.
British journalist, Lauren Booth
"As a British passport-holder who has committed no illegal acts here, I was able to presume that when I arrived by the boats, that I would be able to get home via Rafah which was open," she said.
The move by Israel and Egypt in prohibiting passage to Booth seems to contradict Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which stipulates that "everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country". The fact that Gaza is now under an Israeli siege and she cannot leave in its own brings Israeli policies into question.
Denying civilians access to their land
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem on September 11 reported that Israeli authorities have barred Palestinian access to rings of land surrounding settlements in the past years.
The report states clearly that Israeli officials not only block Palestinians access to their land, but also cooperate in forcibly removing Palestinians, primarily farmers.
The human rights group says in this regard it has documented cases of gunfire, threats of gunfire and killing, beatings, stone throwing, use of attack dogs, attempts to run over Palestinians, destruction of farming equipment and crops, theft of crops, killing and theft of livestock and animals used in farming, unauthorized demands to see identification cards, and theft of documents.
According to the activists, Israel has also established a physical system of barriers - barbed-wire fences, patrol roads, illumination and electronic sensory devices - far from the homes at the edge of the settlements, in effect annexing large swaths of land to the illegal settlements Israel has already set up.
The report states that blocking access is one of the many ways used to expand settlements. In recent years, Israel has institutionalized the closing of Palestinian lands in an attempt to gradually allow the unauthorized placement of barriers far from the houses at the edge of the settlements.
The placement of barriers itself, which has resulted in travel restrictions, has in a way contributed to the situation experience by Tony Blair's sister-in-law. In a just world Palestinians should rule the occupied lands and not the Israelis.
B'Tselem has also reported that the Israeli regime tears families apart, puts thousands at risk of expulsion to the Gaza Strip and turns Palestinians into "illegal aliens" in their own home.
"Israel has increased its policy of tearing families apart between the West Bank and Gaza," Booth explains.
"I have met mothers who have not seen their children for one, two, three, four, five years and that is within Palestine," she continued. "Even within this broken land there is no freedom of movement and the international community must take action to defend the human rights of the people in Gaza and the West Bank."
Among the other issues brought to the attention of the international community since the voyage of the Free Gaza movement was the Israeli requirement that sick Palestinians need to become informants if they seek treatment. This became clear when aboard the boats that returned to Cyprus were kids and people in need of special attention. The issue, however, has been publicized by human rights groups.
Holding health to ransom
Relatives of Na'el al-Kurdi, 21, look at his body in Gaza after he was denied exit for cancer treatment
An Israeli human rights group released a report in August, exposing 'the methods of coercion' Israel has employed to spy on the Gaza Strip.
The report by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, titled Holding Health to Ransom, reveals that Israel prevents chronically ill and terminal patients from leaving Gaza to receive medical treatment unless they can provide desired information about their relatives.
"The exploitation of ill people who are helpless in the face of the demand to inform and report on their relatives, acquaintances and others, constitutes intolerable intimidation and a moral problem of serious magnitude," PHR said in its 80-page report.
Gaza depends upon external healthcare systems for the provision of a broad range of medical treatments as Israel has imposed harsh restrictions and a military blockade on the coastal strip.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the Gaza Strip suffers from a shortage of skilled personnel in most medical fields, lacks appropriate equipment and instrumentation and suffers from a scarcity of drugs.
Required to undergo interrogations, patients are also questioned about their social and political beliefs and at times the requested information relates to issues that the person has no knowledge of, the report adds.
Medical treatment for 'the most helpless members of society', reads the report, 'is explicitly or implicitly made contingent upon collaboration' with Israel on a 'regular' basis.
"I decide and set the rules, and you'll see that if you do as I say, I'll let you go to Ichilov Hospital," the report quotes an interrogator as telling a patient. "It depends if you accept my demands."
Booth says 80 percent of Gazans have been forced into poverty and rely on aid because of Israeli human rights violations.
"Israel only allows nine basic materials instead of the 200 needed to maintain the society," explains the activist.
Despite her current predicament, Booth says she has no regrets and that her children are the ones suffering the most. Perhaps her story, however, can touch those who are thirsty for information about their suffering, those who are willing to act...
As she said in an interview with Ynetnews, "There is no right to punish people this way" There is no justification for this kind of collective punishment." According to her, the suffering in the Gaza Strip is similar to that of those in the 'concentration camps' of Hitler.
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