Dubai: Over a dozen activists on board a ship carrying humanitarian aid defied Israel on Friday and set off towards Gaza.
The MV Rachel Corrie was just hours from Gaza but the 15 aboard - Irish and Malaysian activists, four Indonesian crew and a Scottish captain - did not intend to leave international waters and run the Israeli gauntlet until after daybreak, organisers said.
The Legal Framework of International Law
Despite the shocking Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara on Monday night that killed nine activists, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire, who is aboard the Irish-flagged MV Rachel Corrie, said passengers aboard the boat were not afraid. "We started out to deliver this cargo to the people of Gaza and to break the siege of Gaza, that is what we want to do."
The MV Rachel Corrie is named after an American activist who was killed in 2003 when an Israeli bulldozer ran over her as she tried to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home. The ship's cargo, according to Maguire, was not subject to Israeli inspection as it had already been inspected and sealed by officials of the Irish government.
"We don't have anything but humanitarian aid," she said. Israel has remained adamant that it will not allow the ship to reach Gaza but finds itself in a difficult position as world opinion has hardened against it. Already Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen has warned Israel not to obstruct the ship.
Meanwhile, Turkey vowed to minimise relations with Israel as over 10,000 people gathered at the historic Beyazit Mosque in Istanbul to pay tribute to those who lost their lives on the Freedom Flotilla.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel on Friday of breaking Biblical commandments against murder and said Ankara was considering cutting ties with its one-time ally to a minimum.
"I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says ‘thou shalt not kill'. Did you not understand?" Erdogan said in his harshest words yet since Israeli commandos raided the Mavi Marmara on Monday.
"I'll say again. I say in English ‘you shall not kill'. Did you still not understand? So I'll say to you in your own language. I say in Hebrew Lo Tirtzakh," he said in a televised speech to supporters of his Islamist-leaning AK Party.
Public protests
Cairo, Amman and Beirut all witnessed protests, calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassadors.
A sit-in in Syria saw university students and professors demanding sanctions against Israel. On Thursday, South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel, making it the third country after Turkey and Ecuador to do so. Even the usually pro-Israeli Middle East peace envoy and former British prime minister Tony Blair said in an interview yesterday that the Israeli blockade of Gaza was "counter-productive".
— With inputs from AFP
