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ISRAEL

Ship to Gaza to set sail again

The organisers of an aid flottilla Ship to Gaza said in Stockholm on Wednesday they would make a new attempt to reach the Palestinian territory before the end of 2010.

Ship to Gaza to set sail again

“We are going to send a flotilla if the siege is not lifted,” Ship to Gaza Sweden spokesman Dror Feiler told AFP after the group’s meeting in Stockholm.

A six-ship fleet first attempted to reach the Palestinian territory on May 31 but it was halted by an Israeli raid that left nine Turkish activists dead.

“We will go (again) before the end of this year and we are quite sure that this flotilla will be more boats, bigger boats, it will be several passenger boats,” said Feiler, who took part in the flotilla’s first trip.

“And as determined before, we will not accept Israeli control, we will not accept Israeli inspections and we will go to Gaza,” the Israeli-born Swedish artist and longtime activist said.

“We hope that Israel and the international community will realise it is not possible to stop this and that it is not acceptable to continue with the siege,” he added.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement it planned to enlarge the coalition “to include the various groups around the world that want to join us, as well as intensify our efforts to mobilise a new flotilla.”

“We are buying boats, we are getting a lot of funds to get more boats,” Feiler said, adding the “Ship to Gaza” movement had spread to France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, United States and Canada.

Wednesday’s meeting was “coordination of our efforts, discussion with the new groups,” Feiler said.

He said an exact date had not been set for the future attempt because of boat purchasing and licensing issues, and the weather.

Israel sparked international outrage when its commandos attacked the fleet early on May 31. Israeli troops then forced the six ships in the convoy to dock at an Israeli port, before detaining those on board.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday announced the formation of a four-member panel to probe the deadly raid. Israel has backed the investigation.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said Wednesday it had “fundamental concerns” with the panel, and that the easing of the Gaza blockade announced by Israel on June 21, was “purely cosmetic.”

Israel imposed the siege on the Gaza strip in June 2006 after its soldier, Gilad Shalit, was captured by Gaza militants, tightening it a year later when Hamas seized power in the coastal strip.

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ISRAEL

Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street

A former Israeli soldier was attacked in the German capital Berlin, police said Saturday, with one or several unknown assailants spraying him with an irritant and throwing him to the ground.

Former Israeli soldier attacked on Berlin street
Israeli soldiers on operation near the Gaza Strip. Photo: dpa | Ilia Yefimovich

The 29-year-old was wearing a top with the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) logo when the attackers started harassing him on Friday about his religion, the police added, calling it “an anti-Semitic attack”.

Officers are seeking the assailants, who fled immediately after the attack, on suspicion of a politically-motivated crime.

Saturday is the second anniversary of an attack by a far-right gunman on a synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle, who killed two in a rampage when he failed to break into the house of worship.

It was one of a string of incidents that led authorities to declare the far right and neo-Nazis Germany’s top security threat.

Also this week, a musician claimed he was turned away from a hotel in eastern city Leipzig for wearing a Star-of-David pendant.

While the allegations prompted a fierce response from a Jewish community unsettled by increasing anti-Semitic crimes, several investigations have been mounted into contradictory accounts of the incident.

In 2019, police recorded 2,032 anti-Semitic crimes, an increase of 13 percent year-on-year.

“The threat is complex and comes from different directions” from jihadists to the far right, the federal government’s commissioner for the fight against anti-Semitism Felix Klein said recently.

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