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Ship to Gaza boarded by Israeli soldiers: report

Published: 20 Oct 12 11:07 CET | Print version
Online: http://www.thelocal.se/43944/20121020/

Israeli soldiers have surrounded and boarded Estelle, a vessel operated by Sweden-based activist group Ship to Gaza, according to reports from the crew.

"I can confirm that at around 10:15 Central European Time, Estelle was attacked by five or six military vessels. Soldiers wearing masks were trying to board the boat," said Mikael Löfgren at Ship to Gaza to The Local on Saturday.

Löfgren told The Local that communication with the crew onboard the Estelle broke off shortly afterwards and telephone contact had not yet been re-established.

There are no reports of any violence in connection with the incident, which occurred in international waters.

"All I heard were voices that were not calm," Löfgren said.

Ship to Gaza is part of the Freedom Flotilla which aims to raise awareness by attempting to break Israel's sea blockade of the Gaza Strip.

Two years ago at the first attempt to reach Gaza by sea, a Turkish vessel in the flotilla was boarded by Israeli soldiers resulting in the death of nine activists.

Aside from its symbolic cargo or necessities, the Estelle is carrying a crew of 17 which includes nationals from Sweden, Canada, Norway, Israel, Greece and the US.

Löfgren told The Local that the embassies of the nationalities onboard the vessel have been informed and that the organization's lawyers had been contacted.

An Israeli government spokesperson has confirmed that the navy had contacted the Estelle and had been denied access, according to a report by Al Jazeera.

The spokesperson denied that the vessel had been boarded or attacked.

According to reports on shiptogaza.se the crew onboard the Estelle were contacted by the Israeli navy as they approached the Israeli coast on Saturday morning, some four hours from their destination Gaza City.

The Local (news@thelocal.se)

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12:13 October 20, 2012 by StoutViking
Why won't anyone sent a flotilla to Latakia? You know, where people really are dying and in need of aid...

Ah, right, it's not "sexy" enough.

Hypocrite schmucks.
12:32 October 20, 2012 by sausi
I think it will be better they will go Syria,,,why they don't go there???????

Gaza have border with Egypt ,,,and many food there lollllllllllllllllllllll

Gaza shoot missile almost every day to the Israelis....just for killing, you think its normal?

lolllllllllllllllllllllllll
12:32 October 20, 2012 by JOHNATAN
And yet there is the possibility to transfer all the goods through the Ashdod port and

in a peacefull way after a coordination with the Israeli custum authorithy, from Ashdod the goods may cross Gazza through Erez border cross, from Ashdod it will be transfered with trucks untill that pass and from their it is taking by Gazzan trucks inside the strip, the cross is functioning from sunday to friday and get close just in case of shelling from Gaza ...NO ONE WISH TO WORK THERE WHEN THEY DECIDE TO SHOT...

Another possibility is to transfer the goods through Eygpt Alexandria port and from there with trucks through Rafah cross to Gazza ,

the two ways function regulary .

Israel
12:34 October 20, 2012 by grymagnusson
why don't YOU organize a flotilla to Syria, Ship to Gaza seem pretty busy organizing their flotilla to, well, Gaza.
12:46 October 20, 2012 by Rishonim
Israel should do what it's savage neighbors would have done. Sink the bloody ship and move on cause at the end of the day no matter what Israel does it will be condemned. Sink it end of story.
12:50 October 20, 2012 by johan rebel
As the previous posters say: why not Ship to Syria?

Oh no, wait a minute . . . that won't do. Assad is just a nasty Alawite, not a nasty Jew.
13:50 October 20, 2012 by jimmyjames
First let us look at the historical records of Jews in Europe. Jews came to Europe after a couple revolts against the Romans afterwhich they were permanently expelled from the area ( known then as Judea, Palistine, ect.). Thereafter they followed the Roman legions around as what was known as "camp followers" suppling items to the Legionairs. For centuries every single, bar none, that the Jews attempted to settle permanently always ended vilently after the locals ALL came to despise and hate them to the point of forced expulsion or death, oftentimes both. This is not rumor but documented historical fact. One must remember that Jews are not and were not ethnically nor racially /european in origin. They were and are Semites, the exact same race and ethnicity as their Arab brethern/1st Cousins. Over the centuries, due to intermarriage ( which was strongly and aggressively opposed by both Europeans and Jews) many Jews took on ethnic/racial characteristics that made them sometimes dificult for outsiders to distinguish from the locals ( however all Jews and local Europeans could tell you at a glance who had Jews blood in them). My point in all this is simply to state that this whole " Middle Eastern" issue will never be resolved until ALL SEMITES ARE RETURNED TO THEIR HOMELANDS AND THEREBY FORCED TO WORK OUT, AMONGST THEMSELVES the terms for their joimt co-habitation of their jointly owned land OR they will embark on joint genocide. We, as non-Semites, ( non-Jews and/ornon-Arabs/ need to WASH OUR HANDS OF THE ENTIRE MESS and remove BOTH sides of this SEMITIC FAMILY from our ancestoral homeland......EUROPE !!! Semitic issues ARE NOT EUROPEAN ISSUES. Send them ALL BACK forthwith....it could easily be done in 10 years. Either they work it out or they kill each other....either we we Europeans will have peace and have the Synagouges and Mosques forever removed from the land that has been ours since the last ICE-AGE.
15:17 October 20, 2012 by millionmileman
Tammy Balwin, one of the most anti-Israel candidates running for the US Senate in Wisconsin's November 6th General Election must be tearing her hair out!
17:59 October 20, 2012 by AHA
The did it again, not a big surprise. Some ignorant people, for different reasons applaud the action, no big surprise either
18:32 October 20, 2012 by skatty
@jimmyjames

You mean that European have always been in peace, without Jews and Muslims! What about all that killings done by Protestants and Catholics to each others, what about the world wars.

The peaceful Europeans have killed each others in Europe more than Jews and Muslims since the ICE-AGE.
18:38 October 20, 2012 by JOHNATAN
jimmyjames

If Israel would have been in 1933 ,6 millions Jews would have not been killed by the 2 WW.

you are right about the historical roots of the Jews and the fact they belong to the Semitic race together with the arabs,the exile of the Jews was forced by the Europeans, they were a tinny kingdom called Judea with its capital Jerusalem and they had a government and a 2 temple on the rock mountain in Jerusalem, the fact was they were exiled by force by the Romans to europe,their land was occupied and for 2500 years they had no enough force to return home , that story came to end on 29.11.47 with the creation of I srael.

as an Israeli I believe that all the Jews should live in Israel exactly because Europe hated them from their first exile day and untill today, your words just prove it,and today I do agree with you there is no reason for that exile,my parents understood it unfortuntly after Auschwizim gates were opened by the Russian army and came to Israel with the ship Exodus.

Israel
18:53 October 20, 2012 by Iraniboy
Sending medicine and food to those starving from malnutrition and different sicknesses?! That is disgusting and nothing less than terrorism!!!
19:06 October 20, 2012 by JOHNATAN
Iraniboy

all these goods will be transfered in few days from that ship to Gazza , through Erez Pass,

those who will wish to cross with that goods will be able to do it.

From sunday to friday and from 9:00-16:00 pass trucks from Israel to Gazza strips with all kind of goods,just military stuff is blocked,

people there are not starving,

also goods pass through Rafah cross every day from the Eygptian side, specialy after Hanie visited the new Eygptian President and got his permission to keep that pass open all the days.

Just to mention that in days of shelling on our southern cities from Gazza WE CLOSE THAT PASS, WE SIMPLY DO NOT WORK UNDER FIRE.

SOUTH ISRAEL
19:13 October 20, 2012 by Uncle
Johanthan

Good job. Do not disregard this idiot's propaganda. He is inventing piles of feces and expect people to swallow it as truth.

Islamists are murdering thousands without any ships going there. The "freedom fighters" know what will happen to them if they visit Syria, Lebanon, Sudan or Somalia. So they choose the only democracy in the entire middle east to express their protest.

How freaking humiliating for them.
21:27 October 20, 2012 by IranianBoy
Hey there Israel JOHNATAN!

So how is it that you dont allow the activists themselves deliver the goods? Is it that your religious ego $hit gets hurt? Who are you to block illegally a land that does not belong to you? I mean the ship is Swedish owned and flagged Finnish... I am sure you can only find blondes in it.. no brown terrorists! Get the hell out of there....

BTW, Persian empire owned the whole middle east and part of India and and whole the region between including Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Armenia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and.... 2500 years ago :) does it mean that Iran (Persia) can now claim owning all these countries? get lost with your 2500 years old story :) Oh I just remembered Greeks owned a big part of Europe some thousand years ago...!

Finally: thank you for not killing the people onboard this time! I mean you killed 9 people from the previous ship and it didnt turn out to be a good thing for your image... hah?! So this time, although you reaaaallly wanted to kill some of them, you didnt... well that's an improvement!
22:07 October 20, 2012 by old git
#15

following the logic of your 2nd pargraph, the Palestiniens wishing to remove the ste of Israel should just accept that times have moved on ...as they have all over the world...
00:29 October 21, 2012 by Uncle
Iran is sending its own citizens to clear minefields with their own people or prisoners of war. There are 3 thousand students still somewhere in prisons after the latest uprising. It holds the Kurds by the throat. It engages in active warfare in Syria and Lebanon. It sponsors Hamas and Hezbollah (that in turn executes palestinians at the first sight) as the front line of their warfare. It established a terror network all over Far East and South America.

It sponsored multiple bombings and attacks in Europe, when it was hunting it's dissidents. It sponsored the attacks on Jewish center in Argentina. It is responsible for quite a few airplane downings as proved in the court of law.

Iran would very much like to annex Bahrain. It claims territories in the Caspian see that do not belong to it.

It's leadership promised a new Holocaust (sorry, the FIRST Holocaust, since it does not believe in the previous one, to an extent that it arranged a Holocaust CARICATURE competition). It spits out thousands of emigrants. It causes thousands more in surrounding countries. Iran forbids Hamas to say a word about peace and the only thing it provides the area is missiles and explosives, in it's eternal love of peace.

It is the center of all evil that Islam could produce and islam is not a noob in producing evil.

And this piece of magic is sitting here and sets rules in regards to how a state should screen the incoming cargo, as if his bucket of feces islamic countries let anyone import anything especially to their rebels (like the Kurds, Tuareg, Sudanese-Christian, Berber etc). His buddy muslims bomb rebels with napalm, cluster bombs and even chemical weapons and apparently it is not a cause for a ship with "humanitarian aid".

There are 350,000 Syrian refugees! Where is the anger and peace love on boats? Where are the demonstrations? Where are the islamic speakers on TV? Forgot? Did not notice? What a piece of...

However when it is to break a LEGAL, according to international law, border control, in order to make a legal precedent that will allow bringing tons of rockets in order to carpet bomb jewish kids, iraniboy is on a forefront of peace and love.
04:22 October 21, 2012 by iwhitten
Let's see.....in Syria 33,000 dead, 20,000 civilians missing, children being tortured and murdered so Euro lefties send a "humanitarian boat to GAZA loaded with 18 kilos of cement and 300 footballs. Oh, and a boatload of leftwing "activists". Tell me, are all of your "humanitarian activists" morons? The biggest shortage of the neccessities of life in Gaza right now is a shortage of Apple I-Phone 5s.
07:46 October 21, 2012 by cowboykodp
"We created terror among the Arabs and all the villages around. In one blow, we changed the strategic situation."

Menachem Begin
09:39 October 21, 2012 by amosor
Mr. Löfgren, all your Freedom Flotilla is a group of cowards who are looking for easy publicity. I would recommend them to sail to Syria, where rebels are slaughtered like sheep and there they really need help. I wonder if you sail there?
21:47 October 21, 2012 by Iraniboy
If only we engage our brain for half a minute we realize that it is only Red crescent that can help during the wars. That's why nobody sent humanitarian ships to Gaza during Israel-Gaza war and they won't to Syria either. But Gaza is not at war. It is a story of a people who are closed to the world so they starve to death!
10:55 October 22, 2012 by Uncle
Oh, the starvation of poor Gaza people! The starvation... The multiple evidences of enormous starvation in Gaza... the children with big bellies (larger than in Somalia), the skinny adults (skinnier than in Sudan), the flies in their eyes...

Oh, the horrors!

I bet that iranilie can provide multiple evidence sources like jihandonjews.com and holocaustisamyth.org.
17:51 October 22, 2012 by motti
Don't become upset with Iraniboy. He is disturbed that enough people have seen through his ignorance and hatred. He is quite typical, he only makes negative comments without facts and is unable to answer questions. Why take him seriously? As the holy Book of Proverbs quotes "Criticise the learned and he will love you. Criticise the ignorant, he will hate you." How very true!

The estelle carried flat footballs and no emergency aid, as none is needed. Even the Egyptians and other Moslems have seen through the propaganda.

According to the excellent finnish site TundraTabloids, the number of rockets/missiles.mortards fired at civilian targets insouthern Israel; This month 76, this year 645 and since the Israeli withdrawal from Gazain 2w001, the number is 15,646. Now who would want Israel to decimate the civilian targets in Israel within proportional response to these attacks?

Israel should now allow the Estelle to continue its voyage, which had nothing to do with aid, just an exercise to demonize Israel. Those on board should be denied into Israel in the future. Allow them to stay in the secular democratic state of Hamas controlled Gaza. Meanwhile Israeli Muslim/Christian Arabs are joing up with the IDF, as Israelis. What answer now?
19:01 October 22, 2012 by Iraniboy
There are Israelis, despite their love of their homeland, are human enough to complain and provide facts about catastrophic inhuman situation in Gaza.

http://www.gisha.org/graph.asp?lang_id=en&p_id=901

Seriously how some of you like motti,uncle,skatty,bcterry and co, can explain your dreadful hatred toward humans to your kids, if you have any? Aren't you afraid that your culture of inhumanity will spread among your family and children and will eventually happen to your family too?! What goes around comes around.
23:29 October 23, 2012 by bcterry
Seriously, how can you continue to tell lie after lie, continue to be exposed time after time, then simply ignore them like they never happened, and continue to come back time after time with more of the same such as this current one.

I'd challenge you to prove this so called hate you are accusing others of with specifics, but like every other bullsxxx lie that you tell, it would be an exercise in futility.
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