Associate Director Matthew Hoh and Senior Fellows Col. Ann Wright and Coleen Rowley will join the upcoming international Freedom Flotilla Coalition. The Flotilla will sail with 5500 tons of humanitarian aid and hundreds of human rights observers destined for the Gaza Strip. Wright and Rowley will be participants on the flotilla, sailing to break the siege of Gaza. Hoh will be the spokesperson for the U.S. contingent of observers, available to speak on the dire situation as reported back by the participants.
The flotilla sails out in mid-April in an emergency mission to address the developing famine conditions in northern Gaza, and relieve the starvation all across the strip as a direct result of Israeli policy and military action. The FFC is a non-partisan international coalition of campaigns, and has sailed to Gaza since 2010 with the goal of breaking the blockade.
“President Biden waited six months, waited until 33,000 had been killed, mostly women and children, before picking up the phone and demanding that Netanyahu reduce civilian harm, allow more aid in, and protect aid workers,” said Col. Wright. “But even if Israel allows more humanitarian aid in, it is still bombing Gaza with U.S. bombs, shooting innocent people and imprisoning the 2.2 million people that live in Gaza. Getting humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza is urgent, but it is not sufficient. We must end Israel’s unlawful, deadly blockade as well as Israel’s overall control of Gaza. That’s why we need this flotilla, filled with unarmed civilians, human rights observers from 30 countries, to challenge Israel’s brutal grip on the Gaza strip.”
“I, like others, have been traumatized these last six months seeing the faces of my own grandchildren in the images of the thousands and thousands of babies and children in Gaza that have already been and continue to be murdered, maimed, starved and orphaned there,” said Rowley. “Unfortunately our warhawk-incensed politicians have been so focused on manipulation of public opinion and the belief in their own exceptionalism that they seem to have fallen for their own war propaganda… U.S. complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide is just one further step (along with its dangerous brinkmanship in waging its other wars of aggression and proxy wars) in ratcheting up World War III, which is so very likely to quickly turn into nuclear omnicide.”
“These brave men and women, including our colleagues Ann Wright, a former US Army colonel and diplomat, and Coleen Rowley, a former FBI Special Agent, are compelled, at great risk, to do something to stop the genocide in Gaza. The international community, including the US, must follow their lead, and act to end the genocide of the Palestinian people by Israel and put an end to their deliberate starvation. It is an honor for me to be able to support this noble and courageous action.”
Updates on the status of the International Freedom Flotilla Coalition can be found at the Coalition’s website: https://freedomflotilla.org, and the US Boats to Gaza website: https://usboatstogaza.org
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