Chicago Solidarity Activists Currently in Gaza
by Voices for Creative Nonviolence
CHICAGO, IL - In response to the ongoing humanitarian crisis
there, and to answer calls for a solidarity presence from some of its
humanitarian organizations, several delegations of international activists and
grassroots journalists are now in the Gaza Strip, meeting and working with
survivors of Israel’s recent bombing campaign.
Travelers include Kathy Kelly, Johnny Barber and Joshua
Brollier of Voices for Creative Nonviolence, who left for Cairo on Thursday,
November 22 and passed through the Rafah border crossing into Gaza on Monday,
November 26. The activists aim to complete their Gaza itinerary whether or not the
current ceasefire holds.
Kathy Kelly, who witnessed Israel’s “Cast Lead” campaign 4
years ago, has been interviewing survivors of the current, much briefer,
campaign. “This was worse than 2009
because of the intensity of the bombing,” reported one doctor. “Bombs fell so
frequently, morning, noon, and night, and it felt like there was no place safe
to hide.”
The delegates spoke with EMT workers excavating a leveled 4-story building in Jamaliya, then met with farmers at a buffer zone protest at Khan Younis, whose acreage on the Gaza side of the border fence has been inaccessible due to long-standing Israeli policy of firing on those who approach the fence. Later, they met with a water specialist who reported that no desalinization plants are currently working. At one site neighbors grieved a family of 14 lost under the ruins of a three-story building thought to be a safe place to hide from the bombing.
The delegates spoke with EMT workers excavating a leveled 4-story building in Jamaliya, then met with farmers at a buffer zone protest at Khan Younis, whose acreage on the Gaza side of the border fence has been inaccessible due to long-standing Israeli policy of firing on those who approach the fence. Later, they met with a water specialist who reported that no desalinization plants are currently working. At one site neighbors grieved a family of 14 lost under the ruins of a three-story building thought to be a safe place to hide from the bombing.
Josh Brollier and Johnny
Barber interviewed fishermen on the Gazan seashore – “Youth don’t want to leave
their homeland but can’t see how they will have any future here.” They talked to teenagers whose fishing boat
was boarded by by Israeli troops for working more than three miles from
shore. They had refused an order to
strip naked in their boat and then acted to prevent the customary destruction
of their boat’s motor by gunfire. “I grabbed the motor,” reported one youth, “and
said ‘you can put the bullet here [indicating his head] but I will not do what
you ask me to do.”
Delegates will post on twitter (info_from_vcnv), facebook
and the Voices website, vcnv.org.
Please contact Voices co-coordinators in Chicago, Buddy Bell
and Gerald Paoli, for updated information and cell phone numbers for the
activists in Cairo and Gaza.
Voices for Creative Nonviolence (www.vcnv.org) has deep, long-standing roots in
active nonviolent resistance to U.S. war-making. Begun in the summer of 2005,
Voices draws upon the experiences of those who challenged the brutal economic
sanctions imposed by the U.S. and U.N. against the Iraqi people between 1990
and 2003.
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
1249 W Argyle St
Chicago, IL 60640
Phone: 773-878-3815
Email: info@vcnv.org
Website: www.vcnv.org
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