Frank Barat, The Electronic Intifada, 19 January 2010
(Left: Ewa Jasiewicz at Gaza's al-Awda hospital. (Alberto Arce) )
"A year ago, Israel launched its invasion of Gaza. Dubbed "Operation Cast Lead" by the Israeli military, the invasion started on 27 December 2008 and finished on 18 January 2009. During those 23 days, more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed including more than 320 children. More than 5,000 Palestinians suffered serious injuries.
Originally from Poland, Ewa Jasiewicz was one of a handful of "internationals" on the ground. A human rights activist, union organizer and journalist, Jasiewicz has spent years working in occupied Palestine and Iraq with oil workers, refugees, paramedics and community groups. She is a coordinator for the Free Gaza Movement and part of the editorial collective of Le Monde Diplomatqiue Polish Edition. Her book Gaza: Getto Nieujarzmione (Gaza: a Ghetto Unbroken) will be published in Poland by Ksiazka i Prasa in March. A year later, she reflects on those bloody days with The Electronic Intifada contributor Frank Barat.
Frank Barat: You were in Gaza a year ago during Operation Cast Lead. Why and how did you and other activists go to the Gaza Strip?
Ewa Jasiewicz: Myself and several solidarity activists from Lebanon, Spain, Canada, Australia, Italy, UK, Ireland and Greece managed to get into Gaza aboard the Free Gaza Movement's (FGM) Dignity boat. FGM has sailed five successful missions to Gaza from August to December 2008, bringing in human rights workers to build political solidarity activism, to break the isolation of ghettoized communities and directly confront Israel's illegal and brutal siege.
FGM's missions are political -- we know Palestine is not a charity case, and that the solutions to a 60-year policy of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and militarized ghettoization are not extra bags of flour, medicine, new tents and millions in aid, but political will and direct action. This is currently unforthcoming from governments around the world, so our actions are about directly applying international law from the grassroots up because it isn't being respected and is being violated, daily, from the top-down -- the siege of Gaza and occupation of Palestine is international, the states supporting it either with their silence or direct complicity in economically supporting Israel are co-occupiers and collaborators in war crimes against the Palestinian people, along with Israel......."
(Left: Ewa Jasiewicz at Gaza's al-Awda hospital. (Alberto Arce) )
"A year ago, Israel launched its invasion of Gaza. Dubbed "Operation Cast Lead" by the Israeli military, the invasion started on 27 December 2008 and finished on 18 January 2009. During those 23 days, more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed including more than 320 children. More than 5,000 Palestinians suffered serious injuries.
Originally from Poland, Ewa Jasiewicz was one of a handful of "internationals" on the ground. A human rights activist, union organizer and journalist, Jasiewicz has spent years working in occupied Palestine and Iraq with oil workers, refugees, paramedics and community groups. She is a coordinator for the Free Gaza Movement and part of the editorial collective of Le Monde Diplomatqiue Polish Edition. Her book Gaza: Getto Nieujarzmione (Gaza: a Ghetto Unbroken) will be published in Poland by Ksiazka i Prasa in March. A year later, she reflects on those bloody days with The Electronic Intifada contributor Frank Barat.
Frank Barat: You were in Gaza a year ago during Operation Cast Lead. Why and how did you and other activists go to the Gaza Strip?
Ewa Jasiewicz: Myself and several solidarity activists from Lebanon, Spain, Canada, Australia, Italy, UK, Ireland and Greece managed to get into Gaza aboard the Free Gaza Movement's (FGM) Dignity boat. FGM has sailed five successful missions to Gaza from August to December 2008, bringing in human rights workers to build political solidarity activism, to break the isolation of ghettoized communities and directly confront Israel's illegal and brutal siege.
FGM's missions are political -- we know Palestine is not a charity case, and that the solutions to a 60-year policy of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and militarized ghettoization are not extra bags of flour, medicine, new tents and millions in aid, but political will and direct action. This is currently unforthcoming from governments around the world, so our actions are about directly applying international law from the grassroots up because it isn't being respected and is being violated, daily, from the top-down -- the siege of Gaza and occupation of Palestine is international, the states supporting it either with their silence or direct complicity in economically supporting Israel are co-occupiers and collaborators in war crimes against the Palestinian people, along with Israel......."
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