GAZA CITY (IPS) — A gleaming new memorial towers in the
center of Gaza City’s battered port. Flanked by flags of various nations whose
citizens have sailed to the Gaza Strip to highlight the all-out siege on Gaza,
the memorial’s inscription bears the names of the Turkish solidarity activists
who died one year ago when Israeli commandoes firing machine guns air-dropped
onto the Freedom Flotilla, killing nine and injuring over 50 of the civilians
on board.

Senior Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh waves to his supporters during a rally at Gaza Seaport in Gaza City May 31, 2011. The rally was held to mark the first anniversary of the death of nine activists — made up of eight Turks and one Turkish-American — who were shot dead last May when Israeli naval commandos seized a Turkish ship that was part of a flotilla trying to break the Gaza blockade. REUTERS/Ismail Zaydah

On the one-year anniversary of the illegal Israeli attack on
and abduction of over 600 civilians on the Freedom Flotilla from international
waters, Gaza’s harbor bustles with people and energy: they have come to mourn
the dead and to herald the coming boats of Freedom Flotilla Two. Palestinian
Prime Minister Ismail Haniya addresses the audience, thanking the Turkish
activists and government for their continued solidarity with Palestine.

Since Free Gaza boats arrived in 2008 — the first
blockade-breaking boats and first boats to dock at Gaza since Israel’s 1967
occupation of the Strip — the boat movement has grown exponentially. Free Gaza
successfully docked in Gaza five times, with another four voyages violently
thwarted by the Israeli navy.

The December 2008 sailing ended when an Israeli warship
rammed a Free Gaza vessel carrying medical supplies, non-violent activists,
surgeons and journalists. The February 2009 attempt ended with Israeli soldiers
forcibly boarding the ship, beating and abducting the passengers from
international waters. A June 2009 sailing was likewise forcibly halted by the
Israeli navy, the passengers aboard abducted and deported.

The various vessels have carried non-violent activists,
international television and newspaper journalists, European parliamentarians,
Jews in solidarity with Palestine, including Holocaust survivors and Israeli
activists and journalists, and even Palestinians unable to get out of Gaza for
studies in universities abroad and those unable to enter Gaza to re-unite with
family.

Israel’s pretext in blocking boats’ passage to and from Gaza
is for security reasons, claiming weapons are being smuggled into Gaza. In each
instance when a Free Gaza or Flotilla vessel has been forcibly absconded to
Israel, only humanitarian supplies were found aboard. Rather than defeating the
boat movement, Israel’s aggressions have had the opposite effect.

Vessels from Libya, Malaysia, and a boat carrying Jewish activists
have all sailed for, and been blocked by Israeli gunboats from, the Gaza Strip.
Two weeks ago, Israeli soldiers fired upon a Malaysian aid ship carrying piping
for a sanitation project in Gaza, forcing it to dock in Egyptian waters.

In May 2010, Free Gaza, supported by Turkish humanitarian
organization IHH, again sent vessels and activists sailing to the besieged
Strip, this time accompanied by the massive Turkish ship the Mavi Marmara. As
the six vessels with over 600 passengers in the Freedom Flotilla approached
Gaza, Israeli commandoes unleashed a barrage of machinegun fire on the boats
still sailing in international waters. Equipped with satellite streaming, the
Israeli assault was videoed and broadcast to disbelieving viewers in Gaza and
worldwide.

Keven Niesh, 53, a Canadian activist on board the Mavi
Marmara, described the killings. “There were several guys who had two neat
bullet holes side by side on the side of their head — clearly they were
executed,” Neish told CounterPunch in an interview after the Flotilla
massacre last year.

Undaunted by last year’s massacre, international activists
have organized the Freedom Flotilla 2, due to sail in one month’s time with at
least 10 boats and over 1,000 activists. Canadian and U.S. boats will join
those of Europe, Turkey, and other nations.

Immediately following the massacre one year ago, Egyptian
authorities partially opened the Rafah crossing. In an effort to deflect
criticism, Israeli authorities subsequently announced they would ease the siege
on Gaza. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)’s Mathilde De
Riedmatten, in a May 2011 interview, noted that “the entry of goods into
Gaza is also still highly restricted, not only in terms of quantity but also in
terms of the particular items allowed.”

More recently, Egyptian authorities announced the continued
opening of the Rafah crossing. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR),
however, notes that this change will not impact on imports, exports or Gaza’s
economy. “These procedures will not ease the suffering of the Palestinian
civilian population or change the economic situation caused by the strict
closure imposed on the Gaza Strip,” a PCHR statement reads.

It calls for “lifting the Israeli closure imposed on
the Gaza Strip, opening the crossings for commercial transactions and allowing
the freedom of movement of persons, including the movement between the Gaza
Strip and the West Bank, through the outlets that are controlled by the Israeli
occupation forces.”

The siege on Gaza impacts drinking water (95 percent of
Gazan water is below the World Health Organization standards), the sanitation
system (untreated sewage is pumped into the sea daily for want of storage
capabilities), and the agriculture and fishing sectors (farmers and fishermen
are shot at on a daily basis by Israeli soldiers). Unemployment and
malnutrition levels soar, power outages occur daily, impacting on hospital
machinery, and Palestinians continue to live in what more and more outsiders
are describing as an “open-air prison.”  Renowned classical pianist Anton Kuerti, endorsing the
Canadian boat to Gaza, says the siege has rendered Gaza “indistinguishable
from a concentration camp.”

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon suggested
nations prevent their citizens from sailing, saying governments should
“use their influence to discourage such flotilla, which carry the
potential to escalate into violent conflict.”

Free Gaza’s attorney Audrey Bomse stated “the flotilla
violates no international laws or laws of the sea and so an outright ban on our
sailing to Gaza is essentially a statement against the rights of the
Palestinian people to control their own ports and lives.”

Turkey has demanded an apology and compensation from Israel
to the martyred activists’ families, with Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet
Davutoglu on NTV television warning “Turkey will give the necessary
response to any repeated act of provocation by Israel on the high seas.”

As was Free Gaza’s goal, the expanded Flotilla aims to end
the illegal siege on Gaza. The Canadian Boat to Gaza (CBG) will “challenge
Canadian foreign policy and the uncritical support of Israeli war crimes by the
current government.”

CBG’s David Heap says the Freedom Flotilla participants are
not intimidated. “Where our governments have failed the Palestinians of
Gaza, civil society must act instead.”