Freedom Flotilla Activists: "Beaten On The Ship And At The Airport"
4 June 2010
The six Italian activists, part of the Flotilla headed to Gaza and attacked by Israeli commandos while in international waters, are back in Italy. Manolo Luppichini arrived yesterday at Ciampino airport (Rome). Palestine Monitor had the chance to interview him soon after his arrival.
He reported that victims of the Israeli assault on the Freedom Flotilla number 19 people and not 9, as declared until today. Luppichini did not see directly the dead bodies but his source is Australian Jennie Campbell, one of the nurses present on the boat. Campbell, who was on the Mavi Marmara with her husband, told Luppichini she counted 19 bodies.
In addition to the difficulty in tracking down the precise number of victims, there have also been conflicting reports about those still missing. Turkish PM Erdogan said today that nobody is missing from the passenger manifests, even if some people are still hospitalised in Israel. Another version of the story was reported earlier, however, by Bulent Yildirim, leader of the Humanitarian Aid Foundation (IHH), the Turkish NGO taking part in the Freedom Flotilla. Yildirim said yesterday to the press that “there are still activists who are missing.”
PM: From the ship where you were (the Sfintoni-8000), did you see what happened on the Mavi Marmara?
Luppichini: I saw activists on the Mavi Marmara trying to resist the assault from the Israeli Navy. I witnessed activists fighting by waving furnishings taken from the boat. Israeli Army commandos were using bombs, weapons, and taser guns (a taser is an electroshock weapon that uses electrical current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles and is forbidden in some EU countries but not in Israel), whilst from the helicopters other soldiers were firing live ammunition on them.
PM: What happened to you during the detention?
Luppichini: I was beaten because I asked to call my family and my embassy.
Luppichini, who is still recovering from a rib contusion and several and haematomas, was also detained in an isolation cell for 12 hours because he reacted to defend a Palestinian activist, Osama Qashoo, while he was being beaten in prison. During the isolation, by knocking on the door of his cell, Luppichini succeeded in drawing the attention of Greek activists whilst they were being visited by their consul: only after that did he manage to get in contact with the Italian Consulate.
PM: What are your requests now to the Israeli authorities?
Luppichini: I want to have my equipment back from Israeli authorities (Luppichini is a videoreporter, who was also recently in Gaza) and I want to know that all the other activists are safe and released.
Angela Lano, Giuseppe Fallisi, Ismail Abdel Rahim Qaraqe Awin, Marcello Faraggi and Manuel Zani, the other Italian civilians and journalists who were part of the Freedom Flotilla, told their horror stories to police and journalists: "We were beaten by the Israeli troops on the ship when they assaulted and arrested us, and also at the Tel Aviv airport by the Israeli police."
Said Giuseppe Fallisi: "We were brought to a prison in the middle of the desert, just built: it seemed they had built it on purpose for our arrival."
Angela Lano, editor of the information agency InfoPal, told the press: "We were kidnapped, both on the ship and in jail, (once you’re in jail you can’t be kidnapped. I don’t understand what she means) where we didn’t have any rights. We couldn’t make phone calls - not even to contact our lawyers."
Ismail Abdel Rahim Qaraqe Awin, of Palestinian origin, is angry: "We did this for the million and a half Palestinians who are still in jail. We want to do it again. We want the Italian government and all countries to understand. Stop being silent: end the siege on Gaza."
"The assault of the Israeli soldiers boarding the ship seemed like a scene from Apocalypse Now," recalled Manuel Zani. "When we understood they were going to attack us we split up into two groups. I went to the pilot-house with the journalists to try to record on tape what was happening, but they confiscated everything. I will never go to Israel again in my life," he concluded, "but I want to go back to Palestine as soon as I can."
Since Monday morning, several Israeli human rights and legal organisations have complained to Israeli authorities about the lack of information concerning the passengers on the assaulted Gaza Freedom Flotilla. Adalah, PCAI and Physicians for Human Rights said that “the State did not provide the names of people who were killed or injured or the conditions, locations and names of those detained.”
After the organisations submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court an extraordinary Habeas Corpus petition, Israeli authorities provided “a barely legible list in Hebrew of the names and legal status of 488 detainees in Ela prison (near Beer Sheva). No information was provided on the remaining detainees.” Moreover, the list classified the passengers as“foreigner” and “from Arab countries”, without including their country of origin.
The same organisations denounced the fact that attorneys were in some cases prevented access to those arrested. “On Tuesday, our lawyers visited the detained activists,” said Gaby Rubin, media coordinator for Adalah, “but it happened under very difficult conditions: our attorneys met with large groups of 80 people; they were allowed to be with detainees for just 30 minutes. There were also a lot of problems with translation from foreign languages, and all they were able to do was collect partial information concerning some names in order to contact their families.”
Gaza flotilla activists were shot in head at close range
Exclusive: Nine Turkish men on board Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times, autopsy results reveal
Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.
Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.
The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.
The findings emerged as more survivors gave their accounts of the raids. Ismail Patel, the chairman of Leicester-based pro-Palestinian group Friends of al-Aqsa, who returned to Britain today, told how he witnessed some of the fatal shootings and claimed that Israel had operated a "shoot to kill policy".
He calculated that during the bloodiest part of the assault, Israeli commandos shot one person every minute. One man was fatally shot in the back of the head just two feet in front him and another was shot once between the eyes. He added that as well as the fatally wounded, 48 others were suffering from gunshot wounds and six activists remained missing, suggesting the death toll may increase.
The new information about the manner and intensity of the killings undermines Israel's insistence that its soldiers opened fire only in self defence and in response to attacks by the activists.
"Given the very disturbing evidence which contradicts the line from the Israeli media and suggests that Israelis have been very selective in the way they have addressed this, there is now an overwhelming need for an international inquiry," said Andrew Slaughter MP, a member of the all party group on Britain and Palestine.
Israel said tonight the number of bullets found in the bodies did not alter the fact that the soldiers were acting in self defence. "The only situation when a soldier shot was when it was a clearly a life-threatening situation," said a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London. "Pulling the trigger quickly can result in a few bullets being in the same body, but does not change the fact they were in a life-threatening situation."
Protesters from across the country will tomorrow march from Downing Street to the Israeli embassy to call for Israel to be held to account for its actions.
Earlier this week, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said the government would call for an inquiry under international auspices if Israel refuses to establish an independent inquiry, including an international presence.
The autopsy results were released as the last of the Turkish victims was buried.
Dr Haluk Ince, the chairman of the council of forensic medicine in Istanbul, said that in only one case was there a single bullet wound, to the forehead from a distant shot, while every other victim suffered multiple wounds. "All [the bullets] were intact. This is important in a forensic context. When a bullet strikes another place it comes into the body deformed. If it directly comes into the body, the bullet is all intact."
He added that all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds. Of the other round, he said: "It was the first time we have seen this kind of material used in firearms. It was just a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns. It penetrated the head region in the temple and we found it intact in the brain."
An unnamed Israeli commando, who purportedly led the raid on the Mavi Marmara, today told Israeli news website Ynet News that he shot at a protester who approached him with a knife. "I was in front of a number of people with knives and clubs," he said. "I cocked my weapon when I saw that one was coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at me from all directions and threw me down to the deck below …
"We knew they were peace activists. Though they wanted to break the Gaza blockade, we thought we'd encounter passive resistance, perhaps verbal resistance – we didn't expect this. Everyone wanted to kill us. We encountered terrorists who wanted to kill us and we did everything we could to prevent unnecessary injury."
Tonight the Rachel Corrie, an Irish vessel crewed by supporters of the Free Gaza movement, remained on course for Gaza. Yossi Gal, director general at the Israeli foreign ministry, said Israel had "no desire for a confrontation" but asked for the ship to dock at Ashdod, not Gaza.
"If the ship decides to sail the port of Ashdod, then we will ensure its safe arrival and will not board it," he said.
Gaza flotilla activist faces death threats
Haneen Zuabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, has been sworn at by parliamentary colleagues and received death threats since disembarking on Monday
Rachel Shabi in Jerusalem, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 June 2010
While other activists from the Gaza aid flotilla have returned home, one is left facing death threats and abuse in Israel. Haneen Zuabi, a Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset who was aboard the Mavi Marmara, is now under armed protection after nearly 500 people signed up to a Facebook page calling for her execution.
During a heated parliamentary session yesterday Zuabi was sworn at and then shoved out of the chamber amid shouts of "Go to Gaza, traitor".
The 41-year-old member of the Arab nationalist party Balad has also received death threats by phone and mail. "I am not scared," she said, speaking from her home town of Nazareth in northern Israel. "This is inherent here, it is not something that started yesterday. It is just harder and harsher now."
Zuabi faces growing hostility for taking part in the Gaza aid flotilla, amid a climate of rage at what has been portrayed in Israel as a premeditated attack upon its soldiers by armed activists aboard the boats.
"Israel wanted many deaths to terrorise us and to send a message that no future aid convoys should try to break the siege of Gaza," she told journalists this week.
Zuabi said that naval boats surrounded the Mavi Marmara and fired on it before soldiers abseiled aboard from a helicopter. She went below to the ship's hold and said that, within minutes, two dead passengers were brought inside, followed by two more who had been seriously wounded.
soldiers refused her requests for medical assistance for the injured passengers, who died shortly after.
Zuabi – known in Israel as an articulate Hebrew speaker – said that soldiers specifically asked her to translatetheir instructions. At first, she refused. "I shouted back, 'Why didn't you ask for my help before you murdered these people?'"
But she realised that such assistance could prevent further violence. "My fear was that miscommunication and panic could lead to more deaths," she said. "Everyone on the boat was terrified, screaming and crying and I felt a sense of responsibility towards them."
Zuabi spent the next few hours conveying the Israeli soldiers' instructions to the passengers as they were searched, while also relaying concern over injured passengers and requests for water, medicine or to pray.
Disembarking with the others at Ashdod port on Monday, Zuabi, who has parliamentary immunity, was interrogated three times before being freed The remaining four Palestinian citizens of Israel aboard the aid boats were released from Ashkelon prison this morning, but remain under house arrest until next week. They have not been charged.
Having survived a situation in which she'd factored a "50% chance to come out alive", Zuabi said she is now facing a different threat, "of racist, illegitimate ideas that have turned violent".
Zuabi was elected last year and, as the first female Knesset member on an Arab party list, views her support for the Free Gaza campaign as part of a wider fight for democracy, race and gender equality in Israel.
She said she cannot yet allow herself to process the violent events aboard the Mavi Marmarawhat happened. "I can't forget the images of the dead, but I haven't cried for them yet. I have to stay strong in this climate of threats against me."
Israeli soldiers put a gun to my head... but I still want to go back.
A SCOT jailed in Israel after being captured by commandos on the Gaza aid flotilla got home yesterday - and told how she's desperate to return to the Middle East.
Theresa McDermott, 43, said she'd endured a "horrendous" ordeal - including having a gun pointed at her head.
She was thrown in jail for three days after the aid vessels were raided off the Gaza coast on Monday. Theresa said she had to listen to innocent people being shot on the boats.
But she arrived back at Edinburgh Airport unscathed and said she is already planning a return trip. Theresa, who works as a sorter for Royal Mail in Edinburgh, said: "It was a horrendous four days. But it just makes me more determined to get back out there.
"It's given us all a taste of what the Palestinians have to go through every day. If I didn't have to go back to work I would be heading back out there this minute."
Home ... with boyfriend James
Theresa was on a small passenger boat, filled with mostly female peace activists from Free Gaza, escorting a larger ship.
The five ships left Crete last week and on Monday morning they were suddenly boarded. Nine people died in the incident.
Theresa said: "It was needless brutality. We had to listen as they fired round after round of ammo, killing innocent people.
"We were telling them they had an obligation to the people of Gaza to let us in. But they wouldn't listen and I even had a cocked gun pointed to my head."
Theresa saw a helicopter dropping soldiers onto the ships.
She said: "We were standing with our hands outstretched, to show them we were unarmed. But they wouldn't listen.
"They fired a sound bomb into one woman's face. It burned the whole of the side of her face."
Theresa, along with dozens of other activists, was taken to Be'er Sheva jail, where she was held until Thursday morning then deported to Turkey.
She flew from Istanbul to London, then back to Edinburgh.
She was met off the plane by boyfriend James Burns.
He said: "I don't know how she does it. She's so strong."
Theresa said she was looking forward to relaxing at her home.
She added: "The first thing I'm going to do is have a hot bath and a cup of tea."
Read more: http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/homepage/news/3000907/Israeli-soldiers-put-a-gun-to-my-head-but-I-still-want-to-go-back.html#ixzz0pwA06NhY
Gaza flotilla activists unarmed: Canadian
Last Updated: Thursday, June 3, 2010 | 11:01 PM ET
CBC News
A Victoria-based activist who was aboard a Gaza-bound vessel that was stormed by Israeli troops claims Israeli commandos instigated the violence, saying they began opening fire on people on the deck.
"The first gunfire that we knew about was when the Israeli helicopter opened fire on people on the deck," Kevin Neish, a self-described human shield, told CBC News from Istanbul.
Neish, 53, was one of three Canadians and hundreds of activists taken into custody during the raid on a flotilla that was challenging Israel's three-year-old blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Israeli commandos stormed the boats in international water. Nine activists were killed and hundreds arrested.
Neish was near the stern of the main vessel when it was stormed, about 15 metres from Israeli soldiers as they climbed aboard and battled the activists. He disputed Israeli claims that the activists were armed. He said that once the attack began, people were looking for objects with which to defend themselves.
"It was a bloodbath and there were bodies strewn about, and medical attention given to them and a number of people with holes in their heads and it was pretty dramatic, but I did not see a weapon, a gun, anywhere on the Turkish, Arab, humanitarian-aid side," Neish said.
"They were using chains, lengths of pipes, sticks, against the machine-guns," he said.
Israel says activists fired first
Israeli officials have rejected the claims of activists that Israeli soldiers initiated force, saying troops acted in self-defence. They said they did not expect resistance when they boarded the ships.
Israel has also released video showing soldiers descending onto the boat from a helicopter as crowds of men appear to attack them with pipes.
Israeli officials said their troops only returned gunfire after they were shot at by some of the activists who had wrestled away the guns of at least two soldiers.
Neish saw Israelis use grenades, tear gas
Neish said he was on the first deck near the stern of the vessel as the attack began and was about 15 metres from Israeli soldiers who were trying to board, using sound grenades and tear gas. He said the activists and aid workers forced them back.
He later found out that, at the same time, more commandos were rappelling from a helicopter onto the third deck near the bridge.
"When they repelled the folks down below, I understand the machine-guns on the helicopter started to shoot people on the deck," said Neish.
"I was within 50 feet of the initial attack by the Israeli soldiers. I saw the flash grenades and the tear gas happening right in front of me, but there was no gunfire from the ship. It was attack from the Israelis. And then I was up top and from that point on, it was dead bodies of the Turks coming in and injured bodies of the Turks and the second deck mezzanine area … was literally full of wounded and dying humanitarian aid workers."
Neish said he didn't directly witness the outbreak of gunfire but stressed that he didn't see any guns among the activists and aid workers before the attack began.
"Before the attack, I walked around the ship about an hour before and what they had was nuts and bolts and pieces of pipe around the edge of the ship to throw at the Israeli Zodiacs. That's the weapons I saw [with] the activists: I saw links of chain and nuts and bolts, wooden links."
Saw 2 captured soldiers
Neish said that he saw two captured Israelis being carried from the upper deck down. He said one man tried to strike out and attack one of the young soldiers but other activists pushed him back and protected the soldier.
"I didn't see any serious wounds on the soldiers and they were flailing about, terrified, but I didn't see any wounds on them," he said.
Neish said around six to eight people began disarming the soldiers, pulling weapons off their ammo belts and taking their backpacks and helmets.
"They were released unharmed, from what I understand."
He said after he was taken into custody, Israeli authorities treated him poorly and he is still suffering the effects of his arrest.
"I spent 15 hours without being allowed to go to the washroom. I spent 24 hours without really being allowed to stand," he said. "I had guns put in my face. I had a revolver put in my face. Anytime I tried to rise up, stretch, I had a gun on me, had a dog snapping at me."
Neish said the Turkish government has offered to fly him home.
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/06/03/kevin-neish-gaza.html#ixzz0pwCLRvJH
What happened to us is happening in Gaza
Friday, June 4, 2010
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/04/EDC31DQ215.DTL#ixzz0pwEkY6IH
In the predawn hours of May 31, I was aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, part of a convoy of humanitarian vessels aiming to deliver aid to besieged civilians in Gaza, when we were attacked in international waters by a unit of Israeli commandos.
Our ship had been inspected by customs agents in Turkey, a NATO member, who confirmed that there were no guns or any such weapons aboard. Indeed, the Israeli government has produced no such arms. What was aboard the ship were hundreds of civilian passengers, representatives of dozens of countries, who had planned to deliver the flotilla's much-needed humanitarian materials for the Gazan people. These Palestinians have suffered under an illegal siege - first imposed by Israel in 2005 and strictly enforced since early 2009 - which Amnesty International has called "a flagrant violation of international law."
The passengers on our ship - including elected officials, diplomats, media professionals and human rights workers - joined the flotilla as an act of peaceful protest. Israel's powerful navy could have easily approached our boat and boarded it in broad daylight or pursued nonviolent options for disabling our vessel. Instead, the Israeli military launched a nighttime assault with heavily armed commandos. Under attack, some passengers skirmished with the boarding soldiers using broomsticks and other items at hand. The commandos and navy soldiers shot and killed at least nine civilians and seriously injured dozens more. Others are still missing. The final death toll has yet to be determined.
I feared for the lives of my fellow passengers as I heard shots being fired on deck, and I later saw the bodies of several people killed being carried inside. I had expected soldiers to shoot in the air or aim at people's legs, but instead I saw the bodies of people who appeared to have been shot multiple times in the head or chest.
When it was over, the Israeli soldiers commandeered our ships, illegally kidnapped us from international waters, towed us to the port of Ashdod, and arrested all of us on board.
The Israeli government has confiscated all of our video equipment, hard drives with video footage, cell phones and notebooks. They detained the journalists aboard my ship, preventing them for days from speaking about what happened. Acting on Israel's behalf at the U.N. Security Council, the United States has attempted to block a full, impartial, international investigation of the incident.
Nevertheless, even at this early stage the world has expressed outrage around a basic fact: There is no justification for launching a deadly commando attack in the dark of night on a humanitarian-aid convoy.
The Israeli government denies that its punitive blockade of Gaza is the source of hardship for civilians there. While its spokespeople actively work to create confusion in the media, the truth is clear for all who would care to see it. The overwhelming conclusion of highly respected human rights authorities is that the Israeli government, because it does not accept the legitimacy of the elected Hamas government, is pursuing a policy of what Human Rights Watch calls "collective punishment against the civilian population," illegal under international law.
With regard to the flotilla I was on, the Israeli government says it would have permitted our humanitarian aid to enter Gaza by land had we submitted it through "proper channels." But Israel's "proper channels" - restrictive checkpoints that have repeatedly turned away World Health Organization medical supplies and rejected or delayed the delivery of U.N. food aid - are the very source of the humanitarian crisis.
Israeli spokespeople insist that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a provocation. It was, in the sense that civil rights protesters in the American south who sat at segregated lunch counters represented a provocation to segregationists, or in the sense that all nonviolent protests against the illegitimate acts of a government are by definition provocations. Under an illegal siege, the delivery of aid to civilians is a prohibited act; the intent of our humanitarian convoy was to violate this unjust prohibition.
At least nine of my fellow passengers were killed by the Israeli military for attempting to defy the ban on delivering aid. Far more Palestinian civilians have died as a result of the siege itself. What happened to our flotilla is happening to the people of Gaza on a daily basis. It will not stop until international law is applied to all countries, Israel included.
Iara Lee is a filmmaker and a co-founder of the San Francisco's Caipirinha Foundation ( www.culturesofresistance.org/caipirinha-foundation).
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/04/EDC31DQ215.DTL#ixzz0pwEfq3fQ
Gaza Flotilla: protesters' story
They have been shot at, imprisoned, deported and threatened – what makes somebody prepared to risk their lives to go into the occupied territories?
As the British activists aboard the aid flotilla to Gaza return to the UK, it becomes clear that the majority of them are people who have devoted years to campaigning against the Israeli occupation. They have been shot at, imprisoned, deported and threatened over the years and still they go back. What makes somebody prepared to risk their lives to go into the occupied territories? Ewa Jasiewicz, an activist and journalist, had been involved in anti-capitalist and social justice campaigns in Britain when friends returned from the West Bank where they had been volunteers with the newly formed International Solidarity Movement in 2002. "They said it was something that everyone should do, because you could prevent someone getting killed or injured," she says, on the phone from Istanbul, where she had been deported after being arrested along with the other activists on the aid flotilla to Gaza.
She saw Israeli soldiers mount a raid on the Mavi Marmara, killing at least nine activists and wounding many more, before soldiers came after her boat. "Our engines failed and we stopped," she says. "[The Israeli soldiers] were incredibly aggressive. They were saying 'fuck you, fucking bitch, I'll kill you'."
Sarah Colborne, 43, director of campaigns and operations at the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, was on the Mavi Marmara. She says the experience hasn't scared her from going to the occupied territories in the future. "People went because they felt they had to do something to challenge Israel and the blockade of Gaza. We didn't actually think we would be murdered doing that. But Palestinians get killed every day and I hope that what we did does change the situation and force the world to end Israel's violations of international law." She has been involved in campaigning since being at university in the late 80s. "I suppose it came from a deep-rooted sense that my life was not worth anything unless I was challenging injustice."
When Alex Harrison, 31, first went to the West Bank in 2003, she thought it would be a one-off, but it immediately became clear that she wouldn't be able to forget it. "It's one of those rare times in life when you feel you really can make a change and once you have that sense, you can't turn your back on it," she says. She spent two years in the West Bank. The chance that she might be killed isn't something that frightens her, she says. "I'm frightened more about being wounded and being a burden on other people." Her mother, Sandra Law, admits it was always worrying when her daughter was away, "but I'm one of the lucky ones because she has come back safely".
Of all the activists I speak to, none has been scared off by their experiences. Jasiewicz was standing next to Brian Avery, an American activist, when he was shot in the face in 2003; another friend Caoimhe Butterly was shot in the thigh as she stood between an Israel Defence Force (IDF) tank and three young boys the year before. The tight-knit nature of the international group means that many of them met and became friends with fellow activists such as Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, both fatally wounded by the IDF. In 2002, on her first trip to Gaza, Sharyn Lock, one of the founders of the Free Gaza Movement, was shot in the stomach and would have died had she not been so close to a hospital. "In a way it made me realise what occupation is," she says. "It was also the first time I realised that Israel had a policy of preventing the wounded getting treatment. I was in a hospital that was virtually empty, because every time the ambulances tried to answer calls they would be shot at or turned back by the Israeli army. That wasn't something I could come home and forget." She returned several times, before being banned by Israel, which was when a group of them came up with the idea of getting around this with the aid flotilla. Although she wasn't travelling on this one, she has done several trips in the past. "We knew we were doing something dangerous, but human rights overrides that fear for me."
"We're just like anybody else," insists Lock. "If you were on the street and you saw a car about to knock down a child, I think most of us would step in and try to get that child to safety. What motivates us is the same."
Hedy Epstein, 85, says her activism "came with my genes. My parents [both German Jews] were anti-Zionists so I grew up with that.." Epstein left Germany in 1939 on the kindertransport to England; her parents, and many other relatives, were killed in the Holocaust. She has always been involved in human rights campaigning, she says on the phone from Cyprus, where officials prevented her and other activists boarding one of the boats to Gaza. "In 1982 when I learned about the massacre in two refugee camps in Shabra and Shatila, I needed to find out what that was about. The more I learned, the more deeply troubled I was by the policies and practices of the Israeli government and military. In 2003, I went to the West Bank for the first time time to witness what was really happening there." She has been back five times, and spends the rest of the time in the US giving lectures about what she witnessed. "Each time I've gone back it was worse than the time before." She says she always goes to the West Bank knowing that she might not come back, "but it has never stopped me. If the Palestinians can put up with it, I certainly should be able to. They cannot escape it, I always have the opportunity to leave whenever I want."
For Epstein, the threats don't stop once she is safely home. Last year, she was assaulted in her street and feels she was probably targeted. "The mainstream American Jewish community almost speak in one voice and if you dare to criticise Israel you are called anti-Semitic and if you are Jewish you're called self-hating, a traitor. I get nasty emails. I've been told I should be ashamed of myself and so on."
Fighting for human rights in Palestine might start as principle or ideology, but it quickly becomes an emotional issue, says Jasiewicz. "We have friends who feel like family there and it feels a very personal issue now." For Epstein, it's about taking responsibility. "I don't think I can change the world, but I can maybe contribute one small piece towards that goal of making it possible for the Palestinian people to be free and to live a normal human life," she says. "If you stand by and do nothing, you become part of the problem, you become complicit with what is happening."
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