Eva Bartlett writing from Cyprus, Live from Palestine, 12 November 2008
(Eva Bartlett is a Canadian human rights advocate and freelancer who spent eight months in 2007 living in West Bank communities and four months in Cairo and at the Rafah crossing)
"Over the past year, Muhannad Omar al-Helo has twice petitioned the Israeli government to leave Gaza in order to study in Europe for a master's degree. He has also contacted Israeli lawyers and human rights groups about his case. On 2 November aboard the SS Dignity, the third Free Gaza boat, he was finally able to leave Gaza and the 16-month Israeli siege, which has imprisoned the 1.5 million Palestinian residents of the tiny coast territory, and sail to Cyprus.....
In their two successful trips, Free Gaza has brought a student, and a patient and his family from Gaza, all of whom had no way of exiting due to Israel's closure of the borders. But one Free Gaza organizer, Greta Berlin, knows that the boats cannot be the main means for Palestinians to leave Gaza.
"It's outrageous that more than one thousand medical patients and students cannot leave for study and for treatment unavailable in Gaza. We are doing what we can, but it's frustrating to realize that we can only help a few at a time. Our intention has always been to bring the plight of the Palestinians to the world stage, in hopes that others would follow us and open up a continuous sea-route exit from Gaza, and that the land borders would be opened.""
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