Freedom flotilla sets sail for Gaza

2012-10-07 · first published in marxsite · 142 words

This was not a Socialist Resistance publication. marxsite was Phil Hearse’s own long-form site, run alongside the paper he helped edit. It is kept here with his agreement, recovered from the Internet Archive after the domain lapsed and was taken over by someone else; nothing here links to the address it now points at.

Only a fragment of this survives. It may have been a short link-and-comment post, which marxsite ran many of, or the opening of a longer piece cut off by the capture — from what remains there is no way to tell which.

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A crowd of well-wishers saw off the sailing vessel Estelle on Saturday as it left the Italian port as part of the “Freedom Flotilla” movement.

“We think it will take around two weeks to get to Gaza, but it will obviously also depend on the weather conditions,” spokeswoman Ann Ighe said earlier.

The Estelle, whose voyage was organised by an international pro-Palestinian coalition, is carrying humanitarian goods to the Gaza Strip.

The 17 activists from around the world on board include passengers and crew from Canada, Israel, Norway, Sweden and the United States. Israel says the blockade is necessary to prevent weapons from entering the coastal territory, which is run by the Islamist movement Hamas.