Two boats, “Tahrir” (Liberation) from Canada and “Saoirse” (Freedom) from Ireland, set sail from the Turkish port of Fethiye around early afternoon without publicly announcing their plans to the media.

On social media website Twitter, at approximately 1300GMT, social media activists introduced the hashtag “#FreedomWaves”, calling on Twitter users to help it trend until they could reveal what it meant. A couple of hours later, the activists on board the ships unveiled what the “Freedom Waves” project was doing and an internet solidarity campaign hit the world wide web.

The two boats include 27 activists from Canada, United States, European countries such as Denmark and Germany, Australia and Palestinians from Bethlehem and Haifa. 

Freedom Waves is a part of the “Freedom Flotilla” movement, which has been persistent in trying to break the five year siege of Gaza. One of their more infamous trips was in June 2010, when Israeli soldiers invaded the Turkish “Mavi Marmara” killing nine Turkish activists provoking Turkey to suspend military and trade ties a year later. In July 2011, the “Freedom Flotilla II” attempted once more to break the siege and also had unfortunate mishaps when their boats were anonymously sabotaged and they were stopped by Greek authorities to continue their trip

Since Hamas was elected in 2007, Israel has deprived the strip some of the most basic necessities- such as clean water and medical supplies. Research done after the 2008-09 massacre led by Israel, which killed 1,400 Palestinians- mostly women and children, showed that 80 percent of the 1.6 million Palestinians in Gaza were dependent on foreign aid and lived under the poverty line. 

Freedom Waves is now in international waters (flotilla may be tracked here http://tinyurl.com/65m6hzl) and facing threats of intervention by Israeli coast guards. Israeli military spokesperson Avital Leibovich tweeted on Wednesday the “IDF and Israeli Navy are fully to guard the safety of Israel and it’s maritime border. The Israeli Navy has completed necessary preparations in order to prevent them [Freedom Waves] from reaching the Gaza strip”. She also called the aid boats a “provocative flotilla” and proceeded to call them “provocotilla”. 

The two boats are believed to dock in Gaza on Friday.

Joomla Templates and Joomla Extensions by JoomlaVision.Com