Women’s Boat to Gaza set to start journey

The Women’s Boat to Gaza (WBG) is set to depart the Spanish port of Barcelona and sail to the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip to bring world attention to the plight of Palestinian living under a devastating siege in the coastal sliver.

The flotilla, comprising Amal-Hope and Zaytouna-Oliva vessels, will start the voyage on Wednesday and head to France’s Ajaccio. It will then travel through another western Mediterranean port before reaching the shores of Gaza in early October.

    The flotilla “seeks not only to challenge the Israeli blockade but to also show solidarity and bring a message of hope to the Palestinian people,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which organized the move, said on its website.

The women participants come from more than 15 countries. For the Barcelona-Ajaccio leg, the passengers include Malin Björk, a Member of European Parliament from Sweden, Israeli activist Zohar Chamberlain Regev and retired US. Army Colonel Ann Wright.

Chamberlain Regev, who chairs the WBG’s steering committee, said the activists taking part in the journey “find the blockade of Gaza and the occupation of Palestine absolutely unacceptable.”

According to the UN, Gaza will be uninhabitable by 2020, said Canadian social worker, Wendy Goldsmith, adding that the WBG “declares that the illegal blockade of Gaza must end, so that every person can live with freedom and dignity.”