Convoy to Gaza

Spring into action

2011-04-20T20:18:00.000-07:00

As discussions flit across the internet in preparation for a new convoy I am reminded how bizarre it is that within 18 short months I have become someone to whom heart monitors, dialysis machines, dental chairs and ventilators get offered on a regular basis. While at the outset of collecting aid for Gaza in autumn 2009 I would have turned down very little of people's kind and well-meaning donations of the UK's second-hand or just-about-to-go-out-of-date surgical consumables I now have a different perspective. How is it that the world watches while Israel receives $3billion annually in military aid from the US to spend on brand new technology, such as the pilot-less drones which apparently may have had a role in the "mistake" that Goldstone now refers to the obliteration of Samouni family members in Gaza, while civil protestors and people of conscience scrabble together to deliver second hand items to Palestinian hospitals. It is an insult to humanity and to Palestinians that this is the state of affairs and I wouldn't blame anyone in Palestine for saying thanks but no thanks to any of these well-meaning donations. Its another sign of the corporatised, unequal consumer-mentality of our society here that some of our private health providers make enough money to toss fully functioning, sterilised, expensively made equipment into the trash at the passing of some meaningless sell-by date. But then the big pharmas wouldn't have it any other way would they? Ensuring that the rules-insurance-contracts that are standard in the health industry allow for plenty of forward profit-planning I've no doubt whatsoever.

Oh yes... p.s. Israel normally comes up with some other projects to require funding on top of the standard $3 billion annually received directly in cash at the start of the fiscal year and did I forget to add they also now estimate requiring a further $20 billion apparently due to the added risk of 'Arab uprisings' this year.

This latest road convoy is specifically aimed at supporting the Samouni children in an education initiative to provide a space and some resources to assist learning for the many of them who are part of the surviving family - Samouni Family Community Centre and Classroom. The past month has seen Gazans reeling from not only the recent bombardments and shootings that killed several Palestinian civilians there, including children, but also last week the murder of Italian activist Vittorio Arrigoni. The brutalising and de-humanising effects of the occupation are manifest. For a link to the sort of work Vik would take part in view a short report completed by him by way of thanks for a journalistic award he won, it includes clear footage of the Israeli military firing live ammunition at fishermen and farmers with International Solidarity Movement witnesses. Friends from the movement are mourning and shocked at this murder and also that of Juliano Merkhamis in Jenin refugee camp just a week or two earlier. I had the privilege of sitting and watching the film Arna's Children (link is to the trailer) which Juliano made telling the true story of a handful of children who took part in his mother's drama education workshops in Jenin who when Juliano returns have become inevitably into the armed resistance struggle as young men with claustrophobically sad result. Snapshots of the Freedom Theatre where he worked show a vision of creative activists in Palestine realised.

This year it has been hard to keep abreast of the news, in January we had the release of the new Palestine Papers and wikileaks documents exposing what we all knew really - that the US is a dishonest broker in peace talks and Palestinians have no partner for peace, MEMO hosted a great evening about it. Then the massive popular revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt faltering and turning into something else in Libya, Bahrain, Yemen, Syria. The conflict in Libya has divided not only the Libyan country itself between east and west but also London-based activists, analysts, lawyers and civil opinion, for example the CPGB-ML position describes Britain's intervention as another imperialist war - while 'An Arab in the British wilderness' tries to debunk the myth surrounding the Libyan 'revolutionary' that is Gaddafi. There were two Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973 passed in quick succession in March both explicitly referring to 'responsibility to protect' civilians in Libyan Arab Jemiyrah. Resolution 1970 is the first resolution to have the unanimous vote of the Security Council in imposing non-military measures on Libya, Resolution 1973 was passed by 10 votes for and five abstensions - no veto. So now we are at war again. Hmm isn't it funny how things happen when there isn't a VETO. Yes the U.S. has vetoed no fewer than 43 resolutions and counting against Israel meaning that they have exercised the veto right more than all the other veto Permanent Member states put together - on behalf of Israel. This twisted relationship is undermining the world's system of international law - slow and immature though it still is. The duplicity of the West is thrown into relief again when we consider the lack of response to civilian massacre in Gaza during Cast Lead and this has led to calls for No-fly zone over Palestine. As I've said elsewhere - I am interested in the least dead and felt confused and uninformed about Libya, with one Libyan friend telling me 'thank god for the no-fly zone resolution' and another inviting me to join a peace delegation from the West (Tripoli). I'm erring towards the writer of this blog however I may well be wrong - but I can't help thinking the imperialists of the West were quite happy with the way things were with Muamar before the demonstrators took to the streets. Nevertheless it certainly can't be said that the decision to deploy forces would have been carefully planned and thought through - not like the carefully planned interception of the Freedom Flotilla by Israel (!). If you instruct soldiers what do you expect? Cups of tea? Anyway having to complete academic exercises has meant no trip for me to North Africa this time... It was quite fitting that at the time my university assessment presentation was titled 'responsibility to protect is humanitarian intervention by another name', if you really want some boring punishment you can read the notes that accompanied what I said (n.b. this is an academic exercise and not particularly interesting!).

So back to action - I have been trying to track down the whereabouts and state of the lorry I drove to Istanbul last year so it can be put into use again for the Samouni project. A helpful English local I found online living in Bulgaria has even gone as far as visiting the lorry park and he tells me its there!! but looks a bit sad and unloved. Plans are afoot to revive very soon.

OMG (and friends will know I NEVER use that acronym) I have just seen Richard Lightbown's excellent article about the BBC Trust's response to complaints about Panorama's 'Death on the Med' I am really feeling so incredulous about the Trust's conclusions I'm going to have to stop now.

Mavi Marmara returns, Gaza massacre anniversary

2010-12-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

It is very appropriate to me that today, on the second anniversary of the beginning of the three week long murderous military attack by Israel on Gaza I am currently sitting in the IHH offices in Istanbul wıth colleagues, friends and veterans of flotilla and convoys. As we all know the situation in Gaza has not been eased substantially since the flotilla and 2011 will be a major year for the region given the breakdown of talks and Freedom Flotilla II . I am completing some administration after yesterday's huge event where I was reunited with shipmates from Mavi Marmara and the ship itself returned where it will be docked for a week to be opened to the public. It was spectacular and emotional. There were thousands of people in the crowd that assembled to remember the dead and welcome the ship home. Not everyone from the internationals onboard has been able to make it but some wonderful suprises wıth people coming from many countries to be here.

I landed at 4.30am Boxıng Day in Istanbul from London straight from Christmas Day at home with family. I'm carrying a Christmas present from my family - a new holdall to replace the battered and torn one that has travelled on the convoy and the flotilla. I'm going to keep the old one it is a special bag having been through Israeli hands in June. Durıng the Israeli raid they removed a mobile phone from the bag as well as all my paperwork, notebook, receipts to the value of 700 pounds none of which has been returned. The new bag goes straight into action and is loaded with books and reading I need for essays due in early January for Uni.

On arrival ın Istanbul aırport a taxi firm in arrivals calls me over to try to persuade me to hire a cab from them, during the conversation they ask me what I'm doing in Istanbul and I say I'm here to visit the Mavi Marmara and see friends from IHH. Instead of charging 110 lire for a return journey (approx 40-50 pounds) they take me to my hotel free of charge.

I get up at 10am eat at the hotel buffet which reminds me of the summer - best breakfast I can think of: hard boiled egg, cheese, fresh tomato, cucumber, fresh bread, honey hot tea. IHH minibus picks us up at 11am and we head to the event. I am very happy to see friends from previous journeys including Fatima Mohammedi, Kevin, Nabil, Sheza, Sakir, Laura Stuart, Parveen Yaqub, Babu, Ahsan, Ebrahim, Arif Shah. On the way we also collect Audrey Bomse and Mohamed Salwa and his wife.

On the way we get an idea of the scale of the event. A huge column of coaches is lining the route to the event with waves of people walking towards the site on foot in addition. We head through the crowd to an area separated by barrier from the main crowd, next to this area is a platform with seats for the families of the martyrs and VIP speakers. I see Manuel and Laura from Spain, they have been very active in Spain campaigning ceaselessly since the flotilla and the Spanish public have responded, you can see info about their work at http://www.rumboagaza.org/ , as well as raising money for a ship to add to the Freedom Flotilla II they have started a schools activity programme, erected a statue in memory of the Mavi Marmara, have had theır case against Israel opened by Spanish prosecutor in Spain and continue to engage with the media. Incidentally their lawyers in Spain are the same ones that took the case of Jose Couso, Spanish cameraman killed by U.S. forces in Iraq. It turns out that wikileaks documents reveal the Spanish government bowing to U.S. pressure to drop the case against their soldiers while they were asssuring Couso's family they were fighting for his interests, this may re-open the case. It is also wonderful to see Fatima from Belgium, she tells me about the fundraising they have been doing there for a boat to Gaza for Freedom Flotilla II next year. The wonderful familiar faces of our IHH family Nalan and Gulden as well as many more who were all onboard Mavi Marmara and looked after us so carefully. They have all worked hard to prepare for today's event and to restore the ship to working order.

The event unfolds in spectacular fashion with thousands of people arrivıng, flags, fıreworks, speeches, music, whistles, scarves, banners, balloons, tv cameras. The Mavi Marmara arrives with huge banners depicting the names and photographs of those shot dead hanging from the sides. She is accompanied by many other small vessels to the dockside. There are even some champion swimmers who take part in the proceedings by swimming to accompany her for the fınal 5000m. I take part in a brief interview by a TVNET reporter, just as we are about to begin I see Farooq from Al Fakhoora Foundation who has come from Qatar with his wife to take part in the event, I ask him if any of the 60 or so laptops they had purchased for Gaza students had been recovered after the raid. He said in contrast it was some of these laptops that were found beıng re-sold by Israeli soldiers after they looted them from the Mavi Marmara which has led to prosecution in Israel.

We are at the event for several hours, the families of the martyrs and brother Bulent from IHH as well as some passengers manage to get through the crush onto the ship where memorial photographs and plaques have been erected. I decide there are too many people today and I will return at a quieter time to visit.

I head back to the hotel and we make our way to IHH offıces at around 6pm to get to dinner at another location. I have brought some cards and presents for the families which my mother and I have bought - only small things but my mother said she wanted to thank them in some way for keeping me safe on the ship. I need help with writing cards in Turkish and wonderful angel called Zeynep, daughter of a flotilla veteran, helps me do this. We all have dinner together and at the end Brother Bulent addresses us. He says IHH are launchıng '9 projects for 9 martyrs', this is an initiative to develop a project in each of the home towns of each of the men killed on the ship. This includes sports, music, health, student dormitories a different project ın each place to be co-produced with an international partner, to reflect the international nature of our journey. We will be actively seeking partner charities or trusts to take part in the initiative. IHH would like all of our feedback about what we think Mavi Marmara should do now and he offered the chance for the ship to visit our countries for events. He says IHH have not finalised any plans for 2011 with regards to returning to Gaza by sea but that we will be among the first to know.

After dinner a group go to the ship to visit in peace but I head back to the hotel with Parveen, Sheza and others and we stay up for several hours talking, my friend Mehmet comes to hang out as well.

IHH has been assisting the Asia Gaza Convoy on its Turkey leg, they are still waiting to reach Gaza.

Month of activity - part 2

2010-12-11T05:41:00.000-08:00

November 13th I attended the Jewish Cultural Centre to hear Peter Beinart and Mick Davis (chairman if United Jewish Israel Appeal) in conversation with journalist Jonathan Freedland. The event was called 'Hugging and wrestling with Israel' and aimed to allow participants as Jews who don't live in Israel but support Israel and the audience to talk about a conflicted relationship with Israel critically and raise issues relating to Israeli policy and voices of opposition to it amongst liberal Jews. The room was packed out, sponsored by the Jewish Chronicle UK paper. Peter Beinart caused controversy in US recently when he reported the divide between liberal young American Jews and Zionism in an article the Failure of the American Jewish Establishment . The event was interesting, well organised and the panel were articulate - the numbers attending suggest there is a sense of urgency in the topic at present and indicated UK Jewish community are interested in discussing about what Israel is doing in Palestine and are concerned about its policies. Peter Beinart gave the impression that in US it is very difficult for young liberal Jews to express critical views of Israel within the Jewish community, harder than in UK, however voices in the room how they too felt pressure to conform, such as an ex-student from Durham as a member of Jewish student association she was expected to provide unwavering support for Zionism within the group. On 8th November however Jewish protestors in New Orleans managed to disrupt Netanyahu's speech there, there is a website articulating the position of these protestors and the phenomenon described by Peter Beirnart http://www.youngjewishproud.org/ .

Mick Davis expressed concern about the implications of the direction of Israel's policies towards the Palestinians and there was a tangible sense of running out of time in terms of what is happening there with settlement building and expansion, human rights abuses against Palestinians. For his position he has sparked controversy being reported in Haaretz for his comments at the event - for while stating categorically that he did not believe Israel was an apartheid state that in the current direction the majority would indeed be ruled by the minority - as it was in apartheid South Africa. A question from the floor suggested that democracy and Zionism are incompatible - the panel believed not. When it came to discussion of a bi-national state they expressed preference for two-state solution - but the atmosphere in the room suggested a growing awareness of the unlikelihood of this and the urgency of the situation - its too late for that now.

Month of activity - part 1

2010-12-08T11:52:00.000-08:00

November 2nd is the anniversary of the Balfour Declaration of 1917 where then foreign secretary Lord Arthur Balfour wrote to Lord Rothschild declaring Britain's support for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine.

One of the problems with this pledge of support is that Britain promised the same land three times. Prior to this declaration in 1915 letters between Sir Henry McMahon, representative of the British Government, and Sherif Hussayn of Mecca show that Britain had also promised independence to Arab nations in return for assistance in overthrowing the Ottoman empire because Turkey had allied with Germany. In 1916 the Arab Revolt had indeed resulted in the overthrowing. Not only did British government representatives 'promise' the land to both Arab and Jewish nations they also entered into the Sykes-Picot agreement with France in 1916 in secret decided Britain and France would carve up the area between them after the Ottoman empire collapsed. The seeds for so many years of colonisation, conflict and suffering are laid. Please note the sentence of condition of support which says "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing communities in Palestine" ummm...did anyone else notice that this part appears to have been overlooked?
November 5th was annual fundraising dinner at Grosvenor House Hotel for Al Quds Medical education foundation. This is a dinner and auction attended by many doctors, surgeons and medical professionals some of whom are Palestinians training and working in UK and some are British doctors who have volunteered, trained and travelled in Palestine. There was an auction at the end of a good meal and speeches with art work, furniture, traditional clothing sold off to raise funds. The Foundation pays for Palestinian med students to finish specialist training and for international doctors to travel to Palestine to take part in examination procedures.

Speaking was Haneen Zouabi who was one of our shipmates on the Mavi Marmara and a member of the Israeli Knesset. It was good to see her with her bright indomitable spirit - within the previous two weeks she had been shot at and hit with rubber bullets during a peaceful demonstration in Umm Al-Fahm against a far-right Jewish march of supporters of the banned Kach party that advocate driving Arab citizens out of all of Israel and the Occuppied Territories. She stood up and spoke about how despite being an Israeli citizen she is Palestinian and this is what was not expected of Palestinian-Israelis. Israel she said expected that Palestinian citizens of Israel might forsake or forget their relationship with the Palestinian diaspora, West Bank and Gaza Palestinians and that this is not the case. This is why she said she was on the Mavi Marmara - expressing solidarity with her people in Gaza. She said it was a strange feeling to be standing in the opulent surroundings of the Grosvenor Hotel having come from deprived areas of Israel where Palestinians live. She mentioned the discriminatory laws of Israel against the Palestinian minority who live there and said that the Palestinians were asking only for their civil and human rights - most recently the idea of requiring all citiziens to swear allegiance to a Jewish state . Palestinians she said were willing to accept the colonisers in Palestine in peace but that they must have their rights and the rights of those Palestinian refugees who want to return.

Absolutely anything can happen and it usually does!

2010-11-11T10:04:00.000-08:00

This afternoon I heard news that the boat meant to be transporting the Road To Hope convoy vehicles - currently numbering around 30 - had abandoned Derna port in northern Libya after some sort of incident and has sped away with one of the vehicles and 7 non-crew members across the Med pursued by Libyan authorities. It had half loaded one vehicle onto the vessel when there was an argument of some description, yet to be clarified, the captain tried to close the doors of the vessel and departed without untying the moorings, against the permission of Libyan port authorities, damaging the port side and carrying with it several Libyan police officers and the port manager as well as a few of the Road to Hope members.
Only two days ago Road to Hope convoy had appealed to supporters for emergency funds because the Egyptian authorities refused to allow them to enter Egypt by land and they had thus had to raise money, £37,000 for a ship to carry them to the sea port of Al Arish . The group amazingly managed to raise the money in a lightning quick period of time. At first look it seems the shipping agent and the captain have fallen out about payment and now the boat is half way to Cyprus or Greece. I have now rung the convoy phone and spoken to Road To Hope members who are currently camped up in the port. They are in fine spirits and are happy to know their colleagues are unharmed. It appears Libyan naval vessels and aircraft have been despatched after the ship. Road to Hope members do not intend to go anywhere from the port until they get transport arranged to Al Arish and on to Gaza so are currently politely refusing any invitation to leave Derna port and will remain where they are until they are on their way to Gaza. They have tea but apparently no biscuits which one member Tom Baker says may lead him to desperate measures ;).
The entire episode is completely avoidable if Egyptian authorities had allowed the peaceful aid workers to cross Egypt by land.
Meanwhile last week it was interesting to see that William Hague has experienced ambush and humiliation at the hands of the Israelis. I wrote him a letter of sympathy. His apologetic response to Israel when he visited last week in calling UK universal jurisdicition laws an 'unacceptable situation' is a reminder of how pathetic this country's leaders are when it comes to Israel. As I explained to him - there is little point in kow-towing to Israel over a strategic security meeting - what is the of the value of their security intelligence? I have just seen the report they produced about Mavi Marmara passengers and it is hilariously scant and innaccurate. So now I'm officially listed on their terrorist intelligence website, very funny. Add to this the fact that Israeli officers instruct their soldiers to breach international warfare rules as a matter of course - I don't see we have much to learn from them. We are perfectly good at telling our own soldiers to commit war crimes.
Electric Circus members have now completed their visit to Gaza and left the strip after a number of performances to children in Gaza - check the diary.

Some recent breakthroughs.... with reservations

2010-10-23T09:53:00.000-07:00

Getting into Gaza is still tricky and uncertain but it is worth making the effort if you want to get in - determination and persistence, press and paperwork. I am trying to find out why policy has not changed in terms of Foreign and Commonwealth office assistance to people travelling to Gaza because Electric Circus did not get the paperwork they needed from UK embassy - this was their main hurdle. British citizens have to obtain a waiver letter from UK embassy which Egyptian border control want to see that effectively says "I've been told by my government not to go to Gaza but I'm going anyway". UK Foreign and Commonwealth office in Cairo told them they were not humanitarian aid (despite a letter if invitation from Red Crescent) and said they would not supply the required paperwork. The FCO is thus effectively maintaining the blockade of people through the border into Gaza from Egypt. Despite this the group travelled to the border with letter from Red Crescent and British Council - who supported them after their recent participation in Circairo Festival - and after being refused, waiting, asking again, hanfding over all paperwork they had they somehow were eventually allowed through. Unfortunately the group had to leave one German member behind because he was not British.

Good news is that Viva Palestina convoy Lifeline 5 got through into Gaza one or two days prior after departing London 18th September travelling overland through Europe into Turkey and Syria to put vehicles on a ship to Al-Arish. The group was kept waiting in Syrian port of Lattakia for two weeks while negotiations took place to get them into Egypt and on to Gaza and even then 17 of the participants were banned from entering Egypt so could not complete the journey. They succeeded in entering with 150 vehicles packed with medical and educational aid entering from Rafah border in Egypt. Well done Viva!

I can see from some of the video and photos that are coming out showing the warm reception the successful members received there, Yousef's report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOWjvPplwAU

Another small group who returned recently from a 10-day trip were architects and engineers working on a joint project with UN-HABITAT from University of Westminster, I attended their feedback event on 12th October. Under the theme 'Green Gaza, Sustainable Neighbourhoods' they launched Palestine Regeneration Team (PART) . They are going to work jointly with Palestinian neighbourhood planners to develop an area in Gaza, this is the launch so it is very early days yet.

The event featured a singer Basel Zayed who sang beautiful songs.

Road to Hope convoy have made great progress on their exhausting journey from UK to Gaza - their route is through Spain and Morocco and across North Africa. I can see from pictures put up that great friends made on VP convoy and flotilla are taking part in this such as Richard Viner - childrens' entertainer and performer and Ken O'Keefe world citizen. One of the most admirable members of the convoy has to be Laura Stuart. On the first Viva Palestina convoy she by herself drove a vehicle to Gaza, she also took part in VP3, the one I went with December 09, was on the Mavi Marmara where she was treating the injured as a first aider and now is with Road to Hope. Go Laura!

On other matters we had an email from FCO in London - apparently the Turkel enquiry - the Israeli-led enquiry into the flotilla may be interested to hear from passengers now! They informed us on a Friday and gave us until Monday to let them know what we would do - another example of the contempt of the victims. After brief discussions with other members of the group we agree that we would cooperate in the interests of justice but if the playing field is flat - i.e. we want our belongings back, our media evidence, the soldiers to be interviewed, for our testimony to be heard in public - then we will cooperate. Haaretz covered this news.

This week our legal team travelled to Doha where they met with legal representatives of the other nationalities from the flotilla. They are all together forming the international Flotilla Justice Group that aims to co-work on the legal aspects of the incident and plans to improve coordination and support for future actions.

I have been keeping in touch with our circus group in Gaza and Ruth says it is 'full- on'. They have already completed several performances. They are trying to adapt the show and clothing so they can minimise exposing flesh so that the more conservative audiences in Gaza are more confident.

The amount raised in profit at the Electric Circus was just over £8K - an amazing achievement down to the hard work of volunteers. 25% of this is going to Fairtunes and rest to purchase items to take to Gaza and support the group's immediate expenses. Last Friday I went shopping with Tom who has now departed with the second group joining Road to Hope in Libya so he is loaded up.

I am very sad not to be joining them this time but Uni won't allow it.

Last night I went to Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign film night where the film made by Reel News of the assault on the Mavi Marmara was shown - seeing the dead and injured again brings back memories and makes me feel renewed energy and commitment.

Road To Hope Convoy departs...

2010-10-10T12:54:00.001-07:00

Over the past few weeks aid has been gradually deposited in St Johns crypt and on Friday I finally manage to go through it and pack it into plastic boxes for protection during the journey with Road to Hope. I am not going with the convoy this time sadly because the commitments of studying are too much to do both. Instead I have donated £600 of funds raised to support Hasna and Laura to buy a vehicle and I have more to use to buy items to join the next leg of the convoy. We received lists of equipment wanted in Gaza - items like C-arm operating equipment allows X-rays to be done during operations I think - these are urgently required but we don't have time to source or fund one to go on this convoy.

On Friday I spend all day sorting and packing the aid - ideas of study time are out of the window for now. I take the boxes up to Chingford and have the new experience of hiring a streetvan. Its pretty convenient once you have registered. Its amazing how quickly the company's system has customer info ready - I registered at 7.15pm and was picking up the vehicle at 7.30. It was easy to get the delivery done within two hours. Then back to meet Anwar and Walid who have made me an iron-on transfer image for the costume I want to wear for the fundraiser tomorrow night. They are on their way to pick up their vehicle from Chingford as well so I give them a lift up in the car to where Tox's friends and supporters are having a football tournament - raising more money for the trip. They don't get done until 1am. Tox has been sold a 1956 Green Goddess fire engine amongst many other vehicles for the trip!! But it is going to be too expensive to run the vehicle all the way so instead it may be sold on after some publicity work. It is frustrating I still do not have a camera since Israeli forces removed such items from Mavi Marmara.

On Saturday it appears the drains at home are blocked for the whole building. I cycle to town to a friend's home and get ready for a wedding in the afternoon. This involves travelling to Bromley and back with my bike on the train. Very tight for time because the big fundraiser event at Scala is tonight yeeeehaaaa!! Theme is 'Lunatics have taken over the Asylum' and has 150 volunteer performers and producers involved. I got to So High Soho to get a piece of costume - a straitjacket. This is white cotton and when I get home I iron on the transfer requested which says "Lunatic State" with an Israeli flag formed from guns a barbed wire. A bit of time to make some calls about final arrangements for the convoy such as news that a paint shop in Bethnal Green has donated 150 paints for use in graffiti work in Gaza. Funds raised to be shared between Fairtunes and Circus to Gaza .

Anwar and Walid arrive and pick up the paints and trainers and drop me at the venue. At 10pm the queue is growing and I work on the door with two other girls and Steve B. It's a long busy night with people flowing through the doors and we are still admitting people at 3.30am. The performances are amazing, a massive effort has gone into areas of the event such as the Slumbarave Sanitarium where people are being strapped to beds and given treatments, face and body paint etc by charming and slightly crazed nurses...great music and fantastic dancers doing stage shows. Its a great night by all accounts and we have succeeded in raising several thousand pounds (final figures and destinations tbc).

This morning the Road to Hope convoy converged and then departed - carrying many people and items for Gaza including 15 boxes of medical aid, graf spray paint and Public Nuisance trainers collected by us. See short video report:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_hDKSqWu6w&feature=autoshare

I can't make it to the departure location because I left Scala at 8.30am and need to sleep. I am later told that 30 or so vehicles set off. They have a massive task as they are travelling through Europe to Northern Africa then across North Africa to Libya before joining further vehicles there around 23rd October.

In the evening I can see Hasna has updated Facebook to say the convoy have reached France - well done crew...wish I was with you.

...totally unneccessary and incredible violence

2010-09-22T16:30:00.000-07:00

Guardian report

BBC Report

Sky News Report

News24 Report

UN Report 56 pages long...

2010-09-22T14:28:00.000-07:00

UN Human Rights Council initial unedited report has just been published of "the international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance" please see http://bit.ly/FlotillaReport . The report will be debated by the Council on Monday 27th September.

We are engaged with our legal advisers regularly and supported by Human Rights Legal Aid Fund . The lawyers have provided great support to the flotilla participants and worked with us on all aspects of the fact finding mission just carried out. We have several more irons in the fire on the legal front as well. Some states are above the law thought aren't they?

Other news... Viva Palestina 5 set off over land leaving the Embankment in London on Saturday. It was a bright sunny morning and we heard short speeches by Kevin Ovenden, Zaher Birawi, Ruqquya Collector and George Galloway. The convoy members were determined and optimistic. George said he was appealing to Egyptian authorities to let him pass through to Gaza but would not try to insist and would not come with the others if he was not able if it would jeopardise the mission. An Egyptian spokesman has said he would not be allowed in and he has again appealed through issuing a statement.

Meanwhile work is steaming ahead on the Road to Hope convoy. People are busy buying vehicles and getting organised. I have picked up around a quarter of a van load of aid including patient monitors, peripheral equipment such as tubing, masks, syringes, physiotherapy aids, crutches, tracheotomy pipes, sutures and more. I have also been helped in pricing music recording and performance equipment that we hope to use to set up a Fairtunes project.

Road to Hope is departing from the UK on 10th October with a further delegation leaving on 16th October to join them in Libya for the final week of travel to the Gaza Strip.

I hope to join Road to Hope now as I have been accepted on to a law masters degree in International and Commercial Dispute Resolution Law so I will be busy studying this year.

In the past two weeks I have attended meetings in Ipswich, Southend, Devizes and Birmingham to talk about the flotilla and Gaza. For three of them I was accompanied by Sameh Habeeb who returned from Gaza a couple of weeks ago. He has been able to describe the conditions in Gaza which have not changed positively despite the arrival of some more Israeli consumer goods in the strip. Part of the effect of this has been to undermine some of the market for the few locally manufactured goods with no significant change to the living conditions, opportunities or economy in evidence. Sameh describes how some of the people attempting to leave the strip are being refused unless they bribe the Egyptian immigration officials, sums ranging from $1000 to $3000 in some cases.

At the moment there is an exhibition of photographs taken by journalist Pennie Quinton in Freedom Gallery (Above Freedom Books next to Whitechapel Gallery). Highly recommended. It runs until 5th October and if you can catch Pennie there you will get a great talk and a recital of her poem.

Pennie introduced me to members of CAMPACC (Campaign Against Criminalising Communities). It was fascinating to learn about campaigns by Baluchistani people whose tribal area spans across the borders of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan and whose people are politically oppressed at present. I also learned about the current campaing for peace and justice for Kurdish people and about activities of those supporting individuals in Britain who have been subjected to conditions and actions under the UK terrorism legislation - control orders, house detentions on bail without charge, cases fighting deportation to countries with human rights abuse records. Some families under detention at home are being placed in sub-standard accommodation, moved often and controlled under curfew for extremely long hours. I am interested to find out about these sorts of cases.

Good news is that the 9th October fundraising event is gathering momentum and there are many wonderful people getting involved, so come on down - if you're mad enough to the Electric Circus, Scala Kings Cross, 9th October, info follows:

The Lunatics Have Taken Over the Asylum...
......
9th October 2010
10pm-6am
@ SCALA Kings X, London: www.scala-london.co.uk

Tickets : £10 advance LIMITED!! £15 otd
www.wegottickets.com/event/91555

or... haggle with us! we accept circus kit as payment... !!

Oh my goodness….The Electric Circus is back in town…..

After intrepid exploring we have found the murky world of the Asylum that lurks below the Scala... and it looks like the Lunatics have taken over; so extract and dust off your most mental personality and run away with the circus...

We bring you THE indoor festival of (L)unity……..

This is a musical MASH-UP event - leave your preconceptions at the door!

All the treasure our clowns and badgers gather from you will be used to support a circus mission to Gaza! We also support grassroots projects in Gaza too:)

We do not give our money to a third party, we deliver directly to the people; its the only way...

We will also be giving a portion of the money to Fairtunes.org - check out the wicked stuff they do!

Basically, get involved.

***************************
On the Operating Table for your aural delight…….

The Main Theatre;

www.Fairtunes.org, Skandalous! & Fluorotrash + lots of our mates...

*THE FREESTYLERS SoundSystem*!!!
+ TENOR FLY + MC SURREAL
www.freestylersmusic.co.uk/

*ATOMIC HOOLIGAN*
www.atomichooligan.com

*MOLOTOV JUKEBOX* (Live)
www.myspace.com/molotovjukebox

*FLUOROTRASH* Psychedelic Acrobatic Cabaret (FULL SHOW)
www.fluorotrash.org.uk

*SUBSOURCE* (Live)
www.subsource.co.uk

*HIGH TALES AERIAL*
www.hightales.co.uk

*MC XANDER*
www.myspace.com/mcxander

*RUBY BLUES* Angle Grinding

*ATOMIC DROP*
www.myspace.com/atomicdropmusic

*LOSERS* (Live)
www.myspace.com/losersuk

*THE EQUALIZERS* (ATG)
www.myspace.com/theequalizersuk

hosted by: *BASS6* (5th Element)
www.myspace.com/rhythmandbass

*yasSon + Maria* (beatbox + vocals)
www.myspace.com/yasson

*LIQUID ROSS*
www.liquid-records.com

*FERRET POLE DANCING*
www.FerretWelfareSupporters.org

Random Acts of Lunacy from:

*HERNANDEZ****VIRGINIA* - Coffee Enema!

*CAN CAN***HIGH TALES AERIAL

Boylesque:Freakery!

***************************
Upstairs in the Attic: The Peppermint Hippo Rehab Clinic

The original *ELECTRO SWING CLUB*
www.myspace.com/electroswing

*LAZY HABITS*
www.lazyhabits.co.uk

*NEW GROOVE FORMATION*

PLUS:

*DJ MOODIE*(REGGAE ROAST)
www.reggaeroast.co.uk/

*NOEMIE*

MC WILDEYE, ENRESET & DJ MUSKUT (BASSLINE CIRCUS)
www.myspace.com/mcwildeye

*DICK TREVOR*
www.myspace.com/dicktrevor

*THE SPANGLEBOOTH*

*DJ BASHMENT BISH*

Badger Racing

+ MORE MORE MORE!

***************************

The SLUMBARAVE SANITARIUM:
www.myspace.com/slumbarave

Lie back and try to relax on our bespoke beds whilst our team of entropic beauty technicians preen and polish you in the unlikeliest of ways...

Physco-theraputic treatments include:
Manic-cures, Foot & Hand Relief and Fakeovers.

Supplying a musical medley of lobotomised lullabies fused together with rare disco gems will be...

*CHARLIE McFARLEY*
www.charliemcfarley.com

*MR NEEDLE & GROOVE*

*NACHO*

*D'JUNSEI*
www.djunsei.com

*MARY MISS FAIRY VS SIMON PIEMAN*
www.marymissfairy.com

***************************

In the Padded Cell:

KOLLEKTIVE DUBS
www.musickollektiv.org

with:

*BOYSON* (VAGABONDZ)
www.myspace.com/boysondub

*THE DUB ZONE*

N.D.E. Subtek & The mighty HIGH GRADE ROCKERS SOUND SYSTEM
www.myspace.com/subtekrecords

*WINSTON DREAD* (Earthquake Studios) LIVE SET!
*DUBZONIC* (live) with Sarah Kay-Live vocals,
*ROCKET HI FI* [Liverpool ],

*NICK MANASSEH* - Highgrade Rockers ,
www.myspace.com/manassehsound

*DARYL* - Highgrade Rockers,
*Tiny Tim* - Northampton

SUBTEK RECORDS SHOWCASE (free CD's!):

*N.D.E*

*JAK A TRON*
www.myspace.com/jakatron

*LIAM LOGIK*
www.myspace.com/logikaudio

*LUSHMAN*
www.myspace.com/lushmanbeats

*MR BRISTOW*
www.myspace.com/mrbristowdj

***************************

Around the various Consulting Rooms we have……

*THE DRUM MONKEYS*

THE REALITY TEST (first implemented at Secret Garden Party, tweaked and modified specially for us)
www.urcollective.org

PSYCHEDELIC KIDNAP EXPERIENCE

LOCKS OF FUN BEAUTY SALON

BADGER RACING

***************************
Last year we sent half the money with Lorty on the convoy, the other half we attempted to send via egypt, and then via the flotilla, and we all know what happened there...

The good news is we have Lorty, and the money, back and we will add it to all of your treasure my lovely lil nutters (not Lorty, the money)………and then we'll be taking it to Gaza - along with a Circus. Yippeeeeee! Boarder regulations have relaxed a little, so we have a much better chance….

SO you see……

YOU WOULD BE CRAZY TO MISS IT! YOU MUST BE EVEN CRAZIER TO COME……

Dress Code: Straight Jackets, Lobotomies: The Lunatics have taken over the Asylum…

AND HAVEN'T THEY JUST……………………………………..

peas n love
the Skandalous crew

www.skandalous.org
www.fluorotrash.org.uk
www.myspace.com/electriccircusforgaza
www.fairtunes.org

2010-08-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

Its been a busy couple of months and I have been bad at updating so... sorry! There are a few bits of news now...

In the past month or two I have taken part in events in a few different places talking about the flotilla. These include Kendal, Gloucester, Cambridge, Lewisham, Waltham Forest, Milton Keynes. I've also met with the David Icke London group and have planned visits to Wiltshire, Southend and Ipswich.

In Lewisham the event was co-delivered by Frank Barat of Russell Tribunal and Paveen Yaqub (Flotilla survivor)

I went to Slough to a fundraising dinner where the party raised £3K!!! Well done Hasna.

In Kendal there is a new branch of PSC, I travelled from London to Bolton where my friends Babu and Imran picked me up and we drove the next hour in the pouring rain to speak to a Labour Party group.

In Cambridge there was another speaker called William Parry and he has recently published a book about the art on the separation wall in West Bank - Against the Wall - The Art of Resistance in Palestine. It turns out he and his wife live not far from me in London - by pure coincidence I bumped into him while going to meet someone else, this is great as we arrange to meet up again to talk.

In Gloucester we were lucky enough to attend on a day when there was a local fair and fireworks. The event was held in a theatre and a Conservative MP Richard Graham attended. This week David Cameron also visited Turkey where he publicly condemned the flotilla attack and described Gaza as a prison camp. So now we have potential allies in surprising places.

We spent some time in Gloucester with the gang and saw some spectacular fireworks and laughed our heads off when Hasna's hijab became unravelled on a fairground ride and wrapped itself around Yousef - the funniest thing I have seen in a long time.

After the event in Gloucester I was lucky enough to take Yousef al Helou and Rada Stojanovic home to meet my parents. Yousef is a Gaza reporter for Press TV, Rada has returned from six months spent inside Gaza where she describes people are living 'in suspended reality'.

I was interviewed by online magazine London Street Art Design Issue 5 about the Flotilla and convoys, you can read the article here and also see lots of amazing street art and interviews. I also wrote a piece for the Social Work Action Network but today it had not yet been published.

Milton Keynes have a new PSC branch and have started out with much enthusiasm and a large group of around 50 interested local members. I was privileged to be able to join a show on Ramadan FM on Wednesday.

On Tuesday evening there was a PSC organised event with Gideon Levy and Jon Snow - it was packed and interesting. I invited a new person I've met from an organisation called New Routes. He is Jewish and we discussed briefly the importance of effective campaigns and ways forward in helping to bring about a peaceful solution to Israel-Palestine conflict . If we don't include everyone there will be more trouble. Which is the same message that Gideon Levy tried to make about the upcoming 'peace talks' that U.S. is brokering. He is worried that failure of the talks, likely, to will bring about more bloodshed. Representatives are not being included i.e. Hamas - and that Hamas needs to be engaged in dialogue. The usual disruptor - Jonathan Hoffman from the Zionist Federation is there and shouts out 'they want to murder you Gideon' to which he replies 'and boycotting them will make them less likely to murder me??' - no response. It seems however that Gideon is saying that change will not come from within Israel, that there is little incentive to address or change the situation from there - pressure will have to come from outside. He says he cannot support a boycott of Israel because he is a patriot and speaks out about Israel because he loves Israel and hates to see it going down this path. I feel that he would be unable to speak out about a boycott or sanctions against Israel because of the new laws they have introduced there making support of a boycott illegal .

So now it is time to prepare for the next convoy.

I have not been able to say definitely what I am doing. I've been keeping in touch with Tom from Slough and he is working hard on the aid side of things for Viva Palestina.

Plans are afoot to fetch the truck back from Bulgaria and fit it out with equipment so it will become a mobile recording studio. This would be done with the help of Fairtunes and Strummerville . I have tried to contact Hoping Foundation to see if they can support us as well and we are speaking next week.... I hope so. The British DJ and MC academy have offered us one of their vehicles to take now but we would need to replace it for them and this would cost in region of £40K. Anyone feeling generous??

There are two groups planning land convoys at the moment - Viva Palestina and Road to Hope.

I have a feeling that Viva Palestina may have a better chance of getting in because of the route - but I'm not 100% sure. VP plan to go by land through Western Europe into Turkey and Syria then by sea to Al Arish. R2H plan to go via Italy to North Africa then through Egypt. Despite the challenges of the previous convoy I've opted to try to go with VP again - if I do end up going. Also flotillas are being organised but not much news on those yet. There is a bit of news about a boat Mariam from Lebanon full of women that has been stalled in its bid to continue peacefully to Gaza.

Also in the last month we have had the Human Rights Council Fact Finding Mission who came to interview witnesses to the Mavi Marmara. They have to report back on their findings in September.

On 16th August Panorama broadcast a programme called 'Death on the Med' which was inherently flawed on a number of levels. The best deconstruction of the programme I have found so far is found at:Analysis of bias: BBC Panorama "Death on the Med" - 16 August 2010

Understandably the Israeli military would not have permitted interviews if they had not been assured of the propaganda benefits of taking part.

Guidance for how to complain if you watch it and agree is given by the PSC, also if you did complain but received an unsatisfactory response more guidance here.

This week I also had an interview for a job with the PSC as Campaign Assistant on the End the Siege of Gaza campaign... unfortunately did not get it but did a good presentation so... onwards...

I'm helping my pal Ruth is working on a fundraiser for 9th October called Electric Circus . Circus acts, DJ's, semi-naked people, costumes, noise, lunacy - Hamas's favourite line-up ;). Also involved is Fairtunes .

Trip to Derry in Ireland

2010-07-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I travelled to Derry a town in Ireland with a history of conflict, violence, colonisation and reconciliation.

Derry has a walled 'city' in the centre but is much bigger now although it feels like a town and can be walked around easily (the place is a city technically as it has a cathedral). The fortifications were built by settlers from England and Scotland in the early 17th century in order to defend themselves against the indigenous population. There is much history there as can be researched at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derry,_Ireland so I won't go into it here. However there are parallels with Israel-Palestine conflict in the struggles in Derry and people look to the peace process in Ireland and progress for clues as to solving conflicts. In Derry here was the Anglo-Irish war or War of Independence between 1919 and 1921 where there was much sectarian violence before partition happened in 1921 and Ireland was divided into North and South.

In the sixties the Catholic community began a civil rights movement in order to address discrimination against the Catholic community and members of the Bogside community and demonstrations were violently attacked by Royal Ulster Constabulary, and ultimately by British Forces placed there, which resulted in the Bloody Sunday killings of 13 civilian demonstrators in 1972. Just last month the final verdict came out into that incident finding the actions of the military to have been unlawful and the quote 'unjustified and unjustifiable' used by David Cameron.

The killing of civilians in a demonstration by military forces is precisely what happened with the Freedom Flotilla. We hope it does not take 38 to get justice for the Mavi Marmara.

Responding to Freda Keet Israeli broadcaster

2010-07-13T08:11:00.000-07:00

this is copied from Israel Defender, my response below:

By radio journalist Freda Keet, who responded to a letter by the father of one of the Gaza flotilla participants, published in the Jerusalem Post

To read the letter by Lt Col Lort-Philips go:

http://www.2nd-thoughts.org/id286.html

The Editor,
Jerusalem Post

Dear Sir,

In his letter to the Jerusalem Post, with its spirited defence of his daughter Alexandra, a member of the recent so-called “aid flotilla” to Gaza, Lt Col Lort-Philips, describes her as a woman of “maturity, “compassion”, and resolve”.

May I, with all due respect, through your column and with the kind help of the Lt Col, address to her the following few questions.

1) Has she ever organized, helped or encouraged any form of aid-convoy/flotilla to, for example, the Eastern Congo, where the agony of its people is beyond words. Where the rape of women is constant and brutal, and tens of thousands of women are left mentally and physically torn apart? Children live in terror and any aid is either sporadic or non-existent? True it is a dangerous place to go to, but surely for a young woman and her co-workers of such deep “compassion” and “resolve” this should not be a problem.

2) The same for Darfur where the violence and deprivation have been going on now for years with the full knowledge of the world and its compassionate “aid warriors” When the men are asked why they don’t go out of the relative safety of the camps themselves to collect the firewood instead of sending the women ( a ludicrous idea in view of the general attitude to “men’s work” and the place of women in African society ), the men reply: “If we go out we are killed, if the women go out they are only raped”!

3) On the border between Somalia and Kenya is one of the largest refugee camps in the world, well over 300 thousand people, desperate refugees who have fled the savagery of Somalia, living in total isolation squalor and deprivation. There is little or no aid for them, and they are the abandoned, the “Le Miserables” of the world, with no hope and just a few brave aid workers trying fruitlessly and helplessly to offer support.

Could any of the Gaza/ Flotilla aid-workers even find these countries on the map??

And then contrast this with the problems of Gaza. Yes, life is difficult and yes they live under siege and with a repressive Hamas regime, and yes there are shortages and frustrations. But the population of Gaza receives, per capita, more international aid than any other group on earth. They inspire more love devotion and compassion, (that word again!) than any other community. The eyes of the whole world focus protectively upon them, and Gaza has become the darling of the Western world and its favourite cause and passionate rallying cry.

Israel sends through to Gaza regular aid convoys of food and medicine. The UN is a constant presence, as is the Palestinian aid organisation UNWRA and a multiplicity of other international support groups are also present providing aid and help. And still, around the world the protest marches are organised for the “starving” in Gaza. And aid flotillas line up to come to the rescue.

May I finally ask the following questions, addressed to all these “keepers of the world’s conscience”

1) Do you actually have some kind of point system to grade suffering and worthiness for aid convoys/flotillas? If so what is it based upon?

2) Does Africa appear on this list in any place at all, even at the very bottom? Because just as your heart seems to go out to the Gazans so does mine, painfully and passionately go out to the abandoned of Africa!

3) Is Palestinian/Gazan blood considered more valuable, Palestinian “suffering” more worthy than that of ordinary black women and children of Africa?

4) Could it be that there is a reluctance to go to these forsaken places, because it would all be done well off the world stage, without a world audience, well away from the brilliant spotlight of the media , no teams of TV reporters flocking to the scene, no heroic images in newspaper interviews, no moments of fame and glory ? No chance for defiance, no opportunity to galvanise the “troops”?

And perhaps it is just as well that they don’t go to Africa!. They might encounter conditions that would make them really really “cross”, instead of just plain “cross” which we are told was their reaction to the “flotilla” episode. “Cross”, mind you, in a world gone mad with violence!!!

5) And this question really puzzles me. What is it about the Palestinians/Gazans that has so captivated your devotion and self righteous indignation Alexandra? Could it have something to do with the fact that their “enemy” is the Jews? Such a convenient and well tested scapegoat!

Of course if any of the “flotilla fraternity” have in fact been to African countries offering their compassion and aid, then my apologies and I personally would dearly love to hear about their experiences. And they owe it to the rest of the world to show us that their compassion is genuinely and whole-heartedly for the whole of suffering humanity and not just for Gaza, their own “pet project” with its dubious justifications and questionable motivation.

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Alexandra Lort Phillips Says: Your comment is awaiting moderation.
July 10th, 2010 at 6:18 am
The Editor Jerusalem Post

Dear Sir,

In response to questions in a letter you published from Freda Keet questioning me and fellow Gaza flotilla members on our concern for Africa’s humanitarian needs I would like to address her questions directly. Perhaps you could assist through your column.

1)Yes I have volunteered in Africa spending six months there first at a bush school in Zimbabwe providing teaching assistance then travelling on to a mission in South Africa that provided gardening tools donated in UK to pre-schools in the townships of Empangeni, Natal. It is shame that Ms Keet has not checked out the work of IHH with whom I travelled this year. IHH run numerous humanitarian projects in Africa including Congo where food distribution takes place during Ramadan and Qurban periods. The African countries IHH have completed substantial project work in include Ethiopia, Somalia, Burkina Faso, Djibouti, Chad, Cameroon, Sudan Darfur, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Rwanda, Tanzania, Niger, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Kenya. 2)In Darfur region alone IHH had completed 44 water wells, one school and five cultural centres. In addition to this in terms of emergency disaster relief five projects in Darfur Sudan have reached more than 100,000 beneficiaries. The total number of wells across 12 African countries is currently 633, with 40 cultural centres and 16 schools also being constructed. In addition to this in the past two years IHH have completed more than 50,000 cataract operations and undertaken more than 200,000 health screenings in African countries. 1580 orphans are supported across eight African countries. Since 2000, in Africa, during Ramadan more than 1 million beneficiaries receives food each year from IHH across 30 countries and during Qurban more than 2 million each year across 40 countries. 3)In Somalia IHH have completed 276 water wells, 13 cultural centres and four schools. In terms of disaster relief in Somalia six projects have reached a total of more than 100,000 beneficiaries.

Ms Keet mentions UN and UNRWA, I am glad she does so, then Director of Operations in Gaza John Ging called for the international community to respond directly with aid because not enough aid had been getting through for him to be able to conduct his work. Speaking at UN in New York on 22nd April 2010 he reiterated the words of Ban Ki Moon in saying “the increases in access are a drop in the bucket” in relation to Gaza, see video at http://vodpod.com/watch/3481843-unrwa-john-ging-a-drop-in-the-bucket-for-gaza. He states “We are not able to accommodate thousands of children seeking a UN education… who by UN resolution have a right to a UN education, all refugees in Gaza have a right to education….we have not been allowed to build a school in Gaza in three years.” His comments are backed up by United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs special focus report May 2010, “UNRWA reports that it has had 24 construction and infrastructure projects, totalling some $109 million in donor funds, frozen as a result of the blockade.” p. 2, ‘Impeding Assistance: Challenges to Meeting the Humanitarian Needs of Palestinians’, May 2010, OCHA, http://www.ochaopt.org The report goes on to say that “sweeping import restrictions imposed by Israel since June 2007 have either prevented the implementation of planned humanitarian projects or resulted in significant delays….restrictions on the import of cement make impossible the reconstruction of 12,000 Palestinian homes damaged or destroyed by Israeli military operations in recent years, as well as a further 20,000 homes needed to accommodate natural population growth in the Gaza Strip.” p.4

The report presents the fact that despite the high influx of donor aid to the region the operations are restricted to basic food and cash support which are inadequate to address the causes of humanitarian need creating greater reliance in future. In addition to the inefficiency this presents to donor countries also reported are additional blockade-related costs including lack of clarity on the goods allowed, restrictions on the number of crossings, restrictions in the containerising of goods and the lack of flexibility in terms of permits and vehicles. Let us not also forget that during Operation Cast Lead on 15th Jan 2009 the main UNRWA compound in Gaza City was shelled resulting in the destruction of hundreds of tonnes of food and medicine despite information on all UN locations being shared with IDF. The Board of Inquiry commissioned by Ban Ki Moon found that the Government of Israel was responsible for the death and injury of civilians in seven incidents during Cast Lead and as a result Israel paid US$10.5 million to the UN in January 2010.

In regards to Eastern Congo I must admit I have not travelled there. Working as a supervisor of social workers in within the local authority in North London for youth offending services within children and families services I have worked with a number of Congolese boys whose childhoods had been disrupted there and who now live in UK. What drives them to join or form gangs in London, such as one gang named ‘Dem Africans’ due to the number of African boys identified as members? Could it be the disruption of their childhoods and the need for identity and a twisted sense of safety? Does this situation not sound similar to that experienced by the children of Gaza who end up joining brigades? Could Ms Keet perhaps direct me to some academic research that shows that reducing the life chances and opportunities for children helps them to become more moderate and better-tempered young people? As John Ging stated, again in his report to UN on 22nd April 2010, “This should be about the people, its time to put the people before the politics. If we do prioritise the people.. focus on the needs of the people…that will make the politics easier moving forward. Ignore the people, abandon the people, leave the people to despair and desperation and that will make the politics more difficult moving forward.”

In relation to Ms Keet’s final questions: 1)No, there is no points system for grading suffering – we rely on UN resolutions and reports to indicate where problems may need resolution. 2)In relation to Africa please refer to the projects undertaken by IHH indicated above and see their website 3)No, there is no consideration of Palestinian blood above that of African – however when looking at statistics indicating at least 6,348 Palestinians and 1,072 Israelis have been killed since September 29, 2000, it would seem to indicate the value of Palestinian blood appears less than that of Israeli http://www.ifamericansknew.com/stats/deaths.html#source. 4)There is no reluctance to travel to Africa, I have done and so does IHH – I have however been working in my own community in London with disadvantaged groups for the past eight years 5)In suggesting that Jews are my enemy I am very puzzled – considering I work and socialise with Jews regularly in London and particularly in Palestine solidarity efforts where my co-driver on convoy in December 2009 was a Jewish woman – no, simply lawbreakers and human rights abusers are my concern

Finally it is very kind of my father to describe me as compassionate however everyone seems to be missing my selfish motivations – I personally want to live in a safer world. And with Israel carrying on in the ways it does in persecuting the Palestinians with the complicity of Arab, US and UK governments alike, I certainly won’t be. May I also suggest, as she has such clear concerns over the plight of Africans, that Ms Keet seek out the IHH website volunteer application form and complete it offering her services, just as I did.

Yours faithfully, Alexandra Lort Phillips

Is that the best she can come up with?

2010-06-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

The article at the bottom of this page was published in Jerusalem Post and my father responded with the following letter, see below...

To: The Editor, Jerusalem Post. 19 June 2010.

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing in reply to Julie Burchill’s article in the Jerusalem Post of 18 June and must declare an interest here since I am the father of Alexandra Lort-Phillips, she of the hyphenated surname present on the Mavi Marmara when the vessel was sailing with the Gaza aid flotilla and boarded by Israeli Special Forces.

Linking the way people behave to the names they have been given – over which of course they had no choice – displays the sort of xenophobic bigotry which can eventually lead to disasters like the Holocaust. Although Miss Burchill’s article may have been written with tongue in cheek, it will bolster many with more sinister and blinkered views of the state of the Middle East at the moment.

Millions deplore the plight of the ordinary Palestinians who live in Gaza at the moment, but unlike most our daughter was inspired to get off her backside and try to do something about it. When she became aware of the appalling deprivation that is going on in the strip, her fury was not only with Israel but also with Hammas, with the political bigots of every hue in the region and with the wider international community’s failure to do anything about it. Her eyes were open to the faults on all sides and it was only her passion to help that led her to find the organisation that appeared closest to taking practical action. On account of this she helped with the Viva Palestina aid convoy over Christmas and New Year last year during which incidentally her co-driver was a Jewish woman!

The red tape and obfuscation that this aid convoy encountered both from Egypt and Israel hardened her resolve to help more with future aid deliveries, hence her presence on the flotilla and her encounter with the Israeli Commandoes. As the London Times following this event noted, ‘Ms Lort-Phillips refused to blame the Israeli commandos for the killings. “They got on board the ship and behaved like soldiers behave. It’s not their fault that they were put in that situation by someone in charge of military strategy,” she said.’ Such a mature take on an event in which she and her friends had been assaulted, killed, injured, abused, robbed and incarcerated is remarkable testimony to a balanced mind grappling with what seems to be an intractable problem.

Treatment of the type described above has made her and millions of others around the world exceptionally cross. It has acted as a recruiting agency for Hammas and others who hope for Israel’s annihilation. She is not one of them. She wants justice, peace and quality of life for the deprived of Gaza whose hardship she has witnessed at first hand.

We her parents instinctively admire much of what Israel has achieved since its foundation and also the focus on culture, scholarship, objectivity and democracy that intelligent Judaism has given the world. The recent intemperate response to well-meaning idealists aided and abetted by articles like Burchill’s has lost Israel many friends. It will continue to do so until they open their eyes and treat those who disagree with them with the sort of humanity with which they have been generally welcomed into the community of nations and the sort of humanity our daughter displayed in the aftermath of the assault on the Mavi Marmara.

We share the pride in her shown by her great Aunt Frances Campbell-Preston, another great and much venerated humanitarian whose generation, and she personally, suffered greatly in the defeat of another ghastly dictatorship that so victimised its neighbours 70 years ago.

Patrick Lort-Phillips.

How the British media get their kicks

By JULIE BURCHILL
06/18/2010 16:38

In Britain, tabloids get excited about roistering royals, fickle footballers and sex maniac MPs. But broadsheet papers only really get excited about Israel.

Talkbacks (22)

Over here in Britain, the tabloid newspapers get excited about roistering royals, fickle footballers, priapic pop stars and sex maniac MPs, among other things. They get excited about celebrity love-rats, three-in-a-bed romps and cocaine hells. They’re pretty excitable all round, bless ’em! But some of the broadsheet newspapers only really get excited – really excited, parasexual excited – about one thing: Israel behaving badly!

Of course, one hack’s bad is another hack’s baaad, and of course my first reaction was, “Ooo, which part of ‘don’t mess with Israel’ don’t these bed-wetters understand?”

On the phone later with my equally philo-Semitic gentile friend, she predicted that “if there’s any English on board, one of them will have a hyphen. You wait and see!”

I must point out here that unlike the situ in your gorgeous country, having a hyphenated name here doesn’t mean you’re the proud son of someone, i.e. Ben-Whoever. Rather, it means that you’re an upper-class, peasant-exploiting, in-bred half-wit.

In some extreme cases of overcompensation for what is clearly lacking in other departments, a mere double-barrelled name is considered too, too common, and families will add yet another hyphen – hence the Cave-Browne-Cave (sounds like code for a a pervy sex act) and Vane-Tempest-Stewart (one of the daughters, Annabel, left her husband for a Jew – an exception to the half-witted rule). And imagine how tragic your sense of your own worth must be to actually bother with four surnames (Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax) or even five (Temple-Nugent-Brydges-Chandos-Greville – you’d have nodded off by the time the introductions were done). For some reason (and while not implicating any of the above named), the spawn of the ruling class is often drawn to anti-Israel activity.

IF YOU read Agatha Christie’s stories from before she realized she shouldn’t call people names any more (pre-1950s, or maybe the year when her publishers decided that the next printing of Ten Little Niggers should instead be called And Then There Were None would be the watermark), you’ll find loads of dodgy stuff. There’s “men of Hebraic extraction, sallow men with hooked noses, wearing flamboyant jewelry.”

There’s “the long-nosed Mr. Lazarus,” of whom somebody says, “He’s a Jew, of course, but a frightfully decent one.” And Christie was a smart toff!

Jews are very clever and the English ruling class are very stupid, so naturally English Jews have taken from the poshos a bit of the wealth and property that once was theirs, snatched from the peasantry and bequeathed by robber barons long ago. Nowadays their thick, unemployable children can find an outlet for their inborn anti-Semitism in pro-Palestinian protest. And sure enough I turned on the TV the day after the flotilla was floored, and there was a man called Lort-Phillips, bewailing the plight of his sister, one Alexandra Lort-Phillips, late of the ship of fools, who was now hopefully getting what she deserved in Eretz Yisrael.

A few days later a piece turned up on the society page of the Daily Mail explaining that Lort-Phillips is the great-niece of Dame Frances Campbell-Preston, a woman of the bedchamber (not as fun as it sounds) and friend of the late queen mother of England, who inexplicably claimed, “I am very proud of her. She is standing up for her principles.”

Wow, from royalty-flunky to Hamas-groupie in two generations – that’s the spirit that made this country great! At least, though, the old broad has the excuse of being 91 years old to spout such twaddle. What’s everyone else’s excuse?

It was poor Mark Regev, your charming spokesman, who took most of the flak. On BBC’s Newsnight, the female presenter allowed the love boat cheerleader enough time and space to practically make the Gettsysburg Address on behalf of these savage clowns (they came off like a pair of those weird women who write offering marriage to serial killers, to be frank) before subjecting Regev to such a relentless interrogation that he had to plead to be allowed to make his point.

Over on Channel 4, Jon Snow (a respected journalist but rather strange man, who several years ago refused to wear a red paper poppy – the British symbol of respect for fallen soldiers – in the week approaching Remembrance Day on the grounds that doing so was “poppy fascism”) took up the war of words against Regev, becoming as overheated as a teenage fan of Justin Bieber on coming face-to-face with a supporter of Miley Cyrus, claiming that – ahem – the Turkish president might be about to order warships to accompany Turkish aid vessels headed for Israel.

“What are you gonna do, what are you going to do, eh? What are you going to do if Turkish warships show up?” Snow railed, basically doing a Chris Morris “it’s war!” routine which had Regev incredulous. Cut to the end of the show, when Snow had to make a grovelling apology. The Turks had obviously been on the blower; the president never ordered any warships. And Snow had used a heated exchange to provoke and promote some very dangerous propaganda.

Not once did I hear a British interviewer ask any of the so-called secular radicals participating in the flotilla why they are allied with Islamic supremacists who subjugate women, persecute gays, oppress non-Islamic minorities and seek to impose Islam globally. But Sarah Montague on Radio 4 was a breath of fresh air in her interview with a Gaza-groupie:

Sarah Montague: Are you saying that Israeli soldiers who boarded that ship opened fire and there was no provocation for it?

Sarah Colborne: That’s what I am saying, yes.

SM: You saw that. You saw them fire when there was no attack on them?

SC: I saw them, well, I saw them, what I saw was them coming down from a helicopter onto the roof, I saw them trying to board the boat via dinghies.

SM: Were they attacked by those on board?

SC: They – the people on board, as you can see, were trying to stop...

SM: Hitting them with metal bars...

A JEWISH lawyer I know, as level-headed and laid-back a man as you could find, told me that he has never seen the British Jewish community as frightened as it is now. With the honorable exception of people such as Miss Montague and the brilliant Brendan O’Neill on spiked.com (who doesn’t even support the State of Israel, but writes with sparkling contempt of the reason he despises the Gaza-groupies), the British media must take some responsibility for creating this climate of fear. When British Jewish children are beaten up on school buses, as has happened increasingly over the past few years, I hope they feel proud of themselves and their mission to inform and enlighten.

The writer has been a journalist since the age of 17 and an admirer of Israel since the age of 12. The television adaptation of her teenage novel Sugar Rush won an International Emmy in 2006.

Government, meetings, media

2010-06-18T05:43:00.000-07:00

This week I went to try to do some practical work for the upcoming Glastonbury Festival. On Monday morning I get a call however from BBC New Channel They want to know if I can get to a studio and arrange a car to pick me up from the festival site to go to Bristol. I get there in time to make some short comments about the fact that Israel have announced they are undertaking an investigation. Well good for them. This is no good for us or the international community and we will not cooperate with it.

I get back to site after getting some wellies and manage to do one hour of work. Also put up the large tent for use during the festival. I also hear from BBC Radio Wiltshire who want to hear my views on the investigation so I make these over the phone. BBC Five Live were going to speak to me as well my but they call back to say the football coverage has taken over....

On Tuesday I am lucky enough to get a lift to the station and onto a train back to London. Osama and I are going to Sheffield today for a meeting with Sheffield Palestine Solidarity Campaign. We get there in a couple of hours and during the journey work on statements of the incident for legal purposes - recording carefully and chronologically what happened to us onboard and during out kidnap and detention by Israel. We arrive in good time to get to the meeting and before this Mushir our host takes us to BBC Radio Sheffield for a short interview with their drive time presenter.

The PSC meeting is well attended and we both give our accounts to the group. It is great to see Waqar from Viva Palestina Convoy 3 there - it is a surprise! His friend H also gives us a lift to the station as the last train we can get is at 9.15pm. When we get there the train supervisor tells us we have Chesterfield tickets not Doncaster ones so should not get this train. I listen to her which is wrong. Them we are stuck having missed the last London train. This is a nightmare as Osama has a flight in the morning. In desperation I work out if we can get a lift to Doncaster we could possibly catch the final train. I ring Waqar and he and H return to get us - but instead of taking us to Doncaster they insist on taking us to London! Wow. Amazing wonderful people. So by 1.30am they have returned us home. During the journey I type up Osama's statement and talk about the next convoys with Waqar and H.

Wednesday I need to get to a legal meeting in the afternoon, then meet Paveen and go to Lewisham for PSC branch. I am gutted to find out that Paveen has been a victim of hate crime in her area - a websote has been defaming her, published her address and her tyres were slashed. These are the sorts of people we are up against.

We make it to the meeting and its great to see fifty or so people turn out as well as Frank Barat from Russell Tribunal on Palestine. This is a tribunal originally established by Bertrand Russell to consider the conduct of America in Vietnam with the following justification:

"If certain acts and violations of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them. We are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us"

The Russell Tribunal for Palestine was established in 2009.

Thursday

9.30 in the momrning morning a number of the UK volunteers meet up to attend an appointment with Alistair Burt the government's Middle East minister. I download the 15 minutes of footage from Iara Lee's Cultures of Resistance in the Snappy Snaps opposite the FCO to give to the minister.

We enter a large room in the building with a large long table and long windows. The atmosphere is grand and the air echoes slightly. There are a number of people with Alistair Burt, some from consular department, some from his office. The group ask me to go through the account of the attack. I have my notes of the timings and structure but I am not sure if I am able to get across the horror of the experience. After this we put our specific requests to him. We reject the Israeli-led enquiry - he states the government position is to accept it, we ask to see William Hague - he declines, we ask for clarity on what the government is doing about Gaza - he responds in a vague way 'everything that can be done is being done'.

It is a disappointing meeting - what is the point of hearing about our experience when the policy and decisions are already made and nothing specific is told to us about what the government is doing - oh apart from they do agree to publicly demand the missing passports back.

We come out and speak to the press and media about this afterwards.

I get a call from BBC Wiltshire - they would like my response on their Breakfast time show tomorrow morning.

Friday

Early call from BBC Wiltshire Radio - I state how disappointed we are with the government's response, how the blockade needs to be lifted not eased and how the investigation/ report into the incident will have no value.

I get up and see that Fatima Mohammadi has made a report - it is very good -see here.

2010-06-11T06:48:00.001-07:00

Its been a hectic week. On the way back in the car I spoke to BBC News Channel for a couple of minutes he came out with a number of the absurd Israeli allegations which I think I was able to deal with. Managed to get some rest at home but this is in between numerous phone calls, going through lists of contacts that my brother has put together, checking email etc.

I can also see some of the reports in the papers that have been kept. The local paper in Wiltshire comes around to get a happy family reunited picture. I speak to Hackney Gazette who plan to publish a story as well. On Wednesday I get a lift with friends Julie and George up to London. I have to get to a legal meeting with the group at 5.30 then on to public meeting organised by PSC and Viva Palestina - again we provide eyewitness accounts (see the others' on the side bar on you tube).

On Thursday I get a couple of calls - one from BBC London 94.9 and the other from BBC Radio Wales. I'm booked in for short interviews. 94.9 Thursday 10th at 6.30 approx, BBC Wales Friday 11th morning.

When I get back I can see that some new footage has come out from Cultures of Resistance - its amazing.

I check my draft emails and I can see the following which is what I wrote at the time of the attack on 31st May that I was unable to send due to satellite jam:

"We are currently surrounded by Israeli warships and unidentifıed aircraft, 14 approachiıng according to most recent info.

We from UK opted to join this flotilla taking humanitarian cargo and people from more than 40 countries which has been organised and led by IHH because they are an international humanitarian aid organisation with more than 15 years experience in increasing the stability and security of areas of the world affected by conflict and humanitarian disaster. They support over 10,000 orphans in Gaza through a sponsorship programme and 16,000 worldwide, they work in 127 countries and are extremely well organised and safe.

The idea that such an organisation could be attempting to undertake a mission to make this area more unsafe or 'look for a fıght' ıs ludicrous.

There is no reason under international law why Israel should interfere, inspect or stop us in any way.

We brought with us from UK a truck load of donations of medical equipment that we put on the IHH cargo ship personally in Istanbul.

The cargo and passengers have all been checked by Turkish or Greek authorities - we know the Israeli government have racist polıcıes......."

I couldn't finish or send it due to the satellite jam.

Now in UK - final hours on MM to follow

2010-06-07T01:59:00.000-07:00

I decided to take the flight offered by Turkish Airlines yesterday and come back to UK with the main group of Brits. I intend to return to Istanbul soon however as there are still things to be done in relation to testimonies, lost property and anything else IHH may need help with.
It was wonderful to see supporters, friends and family waiting for us all. There were some cameras and news channels there. I decided to go home with parents who have with my brother done so much to field the media interest and worry about my safety and care.
The days before leaving were something else. On Friday 4th we got up and went to IHH offices, they told us about press conference in another building a short cab ride away so we made our way quickly there. I sat with Nicci Kiwi, and some of the Brits on a stage while brother Bulent (IHH President) held a press conference for Turkish press and TV. He explained how the Israelis had dropped an item on board - this was a list of 16 people from our movement with their names and photographs and the instruction at the top of the page in Hebrew "to be confronted/ challenged/ provoked (not sure of the translation)". The list included the 88 year old bishop Hilarion Kaputce so it is hardly a list of organisers - what were they hoping for in confronting the individuals? After the press conference I walked back to the office and made my way to the funeral of Cevdet Kiliglar - another massive event. In addition George Galloway is here today and he makes a speech to the assembly before the walk of the cortege and crowd to the cemetery. I go in the afternoon to the internet cafe to try to go through the numerous messages. I hear from Mehmet who I met at the forensic centre on arrival back from Israel, he suggests coming out and meeting his friends. Its great to meet them and we have a good conversation about how Mavi Marmara could have done more to keep the lost and injured people safe or planned better - however there is no getting away from the fact that simply the Israeli military turned up and started killing people. I also leave a broadcast on Gaza TV news about my experience onboard here's the report: http://ipad.io/KVB . The guys I'm with are lovely and insist on getting food and drink for me, they are Kurdish Turkish, they say things have improved for Kurdish people under this government in Turkey. I'm given a lovely Kurdish scarf and they jokingly teach me the say "Bijee Kurdistan!" which means "Free Kurdistan". THey say this does not mean a new border needs to be drawn around Kurdistan but that peoples' rights and freedoms should be respected. Absolutely. When I get back to the hotel I am thankful to see that Ken O'Keefe has now arrived in Turkey. He was beaten up by Israeli officers after demanding to be deported to Gaza not Turkey and bearing the brunt of their displeasure, see link for his words directly after arrival, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGlnsIW3zJk .
On Saturday morning again we return to IHH offices. There is a legal team there to advise and assist and we all share our contact details. Next we travel to a police station to make testimonies. This looks like it is taking ages and we are late for a rally. Three of the men killed were from or supporters of the Saadet Party in Turkey, a political party that has arranged an event about the incident and to recognise and remember the men. I go along at the last minute and we are taken in a car that gets stuck in traffic along the way and the closer we get the more I realise this is a massive event. Luckily in the car I manage to scribble down some thoughts about the mission and the men. On arrival we are ushered onto a massive stage in front of a crowd of estimate 20-50,000. Within a few minutes I have been invited onto the platform clutching my notes and have the awesome experience of speaking to the crowd for two minutes - something I will never forget. Afterwards Bulent and then Parveen and other Turkish speakers also speak. We get away from the rally after around an hour with tens of people stopping us for photographs and hugs.

Thankful to be back in Turkey with these wonderful people who I trust so much

2010-06-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

We landed in Istanbul this morning and went straight to a press conference and health check. We then searched for baggage amongst scattered belongings 'returned' by Israel minus all laptops technology hardware and memory cards that could have contained any evidence of them. I was keeping a diary so I'll put it up here but for now just don't have it in my possession. So the next posts will go back in time a bit. We all attended an awesome funeral for one of the murdered passengers today outside the historıc Fatih Mosque. We walked from the mosque area to the cemetery in a crowd of thousands it was stunning and emotional - I found the lovely Ouassima in the crowd and we stayed together and ate afterwards. People here are amazing - when they find out we were on Mavi Marmara they hug and kiss us and take pictures. Insist on buying water and food for us and getting pictures together. I haven't had any sleep so I'm goıng to lie down now and resume when I can.

Another passenger, well 12

2010-05-29T04:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we took on 12 more people who were on Challenger II that had mechanical difficulties. Amongst them is Anne Wright who is an ex US military colonel and ex diplomat who resigned over Iraq war, she said she got involved in campaigning for Gaza following the disproportionate use fo force used in bombing Gaza

We are anchored awaiting the other members of the group to join. People are playing chess, reading, studying, reporting. There is a live link area of the ship where satellite reports being made to various channels constantly. The press room is well equipped with around 20 internet enabled laptops. There is a restriction on press only on these machines and even accessing the room. We have three ships with us now we are awaiting three more.

We have onboard US citizen and Viva Palestina US team leader Fatima. She has brought with her a large suitcase of specialised medication for chemotherapy, respiratory illnesses and other conditions to the value of several thousand pounds.

Sleeping area

Violent comments

2010-05-28T13:12:00.000-07:00

I'm not censoring the violent or hateful comments made on these pages. It only goes to expose the hateful desperate people who make them - anonymously. I wonder if you have any idea how well organised and determined the mission is. There are many peaceful yet yfearless people onboard - cowardly commentators and armed combatants against a humanitarian aid flotilla? You've lost already.

EU statement, UN call

2010-05-28T12:41:00.000-07:00

European Union Brussels May 28 2010

Statement of the spokesperson of High Representative Catherine Ashton on the flotilla saılıng to Gaza

The spokesperson of Hıgh Representative of the Unıon for Foreign Affaırs and Security Policy/Vıce President of the Commission Catherine Ashton issued the following statement today:

''We strongly urge that all involved act with a sense of restraint and responsibility and work for a constructive resolution. The EU remains gravely concerned by the humanitarian situation in Gaza. The continued policy of closure is unacceptable and politically counterproductive.

We would like to reiterate the EU,s call for an immediate sustained and unconditional openimg of crossings for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza.''

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

John Ging Director of United Nations Relief Work Agency on the situation in Gaza ın March 2010:

''I have no cement or steel or iron. We can't get in one bag of cement, one pane of glass 10 months later to actually begin the reconstruction''

All at sea

2010-05-27T23:23:00.000-07:00

Last night everyone got settled on the ship. Many people opted to sleep on deck. The tug boat took the ship to sea and she set off steadily and smoothly. We ate dinner from tinned meat and beans and people sat around talking or went to lie down. It has been a smooth and uneventful journey so far.

This morning coffee olives bread jam cheese and a stroll on deck and to visit the press suite where there are several laptops set up and connected via satellite. A journalist from Istanbul wrote a short piece on me and other flotilla members and he shows me the article and says it will be ok to put up some news on one of the laptops. I dont want to use up valuable bandwidth if media people are using it. The man in charge says its fine so here I am. On this keyboard I cant find the comma or the apostrophe so apologies!

A few details...

2010-05-27T13:15:00.000-07:00

The IHH ship Mavi Marmara is setting sail with 563 passengers onboard.

In addition to the 369 Turkish participants there are 194 others from 31 different countries sharing the facilities on the converted passenger ship.

There are 31 British participants, 32 Algerian including 10 MPs, 32 Jordanian including 1 MP, 16 Kuwaitis including 1 MP, 11 Malaysian, 11 Indonesian, 5 Israel residents of 1948 land including one female MP, 5 Bahrainian including 1 MP, 5 Moroccan including 1 MP, 4 Yemeni including 3 MPs, 4 Lebanese, 3 Belgian, 3 Spanish, 3 Macedonian, 3 German, 3 Australian, 2 Swedish, 2 Palestinian, 2 Egyptian both MPs, 2 Canadian, 2 Syrian, 2 Pakistani, 2 Mauritanian, 2 USA, 1 Kosovan, 1 Greek, 1 Irish, 1 South African, 1 French. In addition there is a previous Archbishop of Jerusalem named Archbishop Ilarion Kaputce who was imprisoned in 1974 in Israel convicted of assisting Palestinan resistance and he currently lives in exile in the Vatican. He was given a 12 year sentence in 1974 but was released to Rome after the Pope’s intervention on condition he never returned to Palestine.

The following media are represented onboard (journalists/ reporters):

Al Jazeera Arabic x 2
Al Jazeera English x 3
Al Jazeera documentary team x 3
El Quds x 1
El Aqsa TV x 1
Venezuela-Telesur TV x 1
Kuwait News Agency x 2
Press TV UK x 1
South Africa Radio 786 x 1
Al Hiwar UK 1 + 1
Gulf News Agency x 1
Indonesia TV One x 1
Indonesia The Brunei Times x 2
Indonesia Islamic Magazine, Suara Hidayatullah x 1
Indonesia Al Jazeera x 1
Indonesia Eramuslim Group x 1
AJ TV Pakistan x 2
Malaysia x 5
Jordan x 1
Spain x 2

In terms of cargo onboard the 2 IHH cargo ships these have been listed as follows:

The Ship ‘Gaza’
Cement – 2104 tons
Iron bars – 600 tons (8-12-14-16 mm diameter, 150 tons each)

Ceramic tile adhesive – 50 tons

The Ship ‘Defne Y’
Iron – 150 tons (for use in building pontoons and floats)

Power Units (5 units of 85kws – 2 units of 145 kws – 6 of 150 kws – 3 of 165 kws – 1 of 100 kws and 1 of 35 kws)

Power Units (80 units of 1-2-5 kws)

Prefab homes – 50 units of 58m2 and 40 units of 12.5 m2

Childrens’ playgrounds – 16 units (combined sets, seesaws and slides)

Medical equipment – Ultrasound Scan device, Electric patient bed, dentistry unit, Doppler echocardiography devices, wheelchairs, disabled electric mobility scooters, stretchers, deambulators, autoclaves, mammography device, microscopes, haemodialysis machines, radiology monitors, crutches, ENT Units, operating beds, gynaecological couches.

Medicines (a container load of assorted medicines)

Construction supplies including tiles, timber, fibreboard, cage, plumbing supplies, electric equipment, plastic window frames, glass, steel cables, measuring tools, hand carts, nails, mountings, bathroom fittings, paint, power distribution units, ladders, isolation materials,

Hardware supplies: electric hand tools, machines, ovens)

Stationery items – pens, pencils, erasers, notebooks, playdough, toys.

Textiles (towels, bedding, shoes, fabric, carpets, kitchenware, quilts, blamkets, couches and beds)

Food items (dried lima beans, chickpeas)

The largest cargo ship was bought by Algeria and the other by Kuwait.

Last day ashore - leaving tonight

2010-05-27T11:01:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting on the Mavi Marmara now - internet connection is currently available via the port building.

This afternoon the entire group gathered in the sports hall in Kepez Antalya and final arrangements were made, lists finalised, people coming and going. Some have to go due to other commitments but there seem to be masses that are still very much coming and the mood is very relaxed. IHH have arranged regular food for the participants and when I get back from town where I have failed to get two laptops, there is chicken soup, rice, melon and sweet fried dumplings available.

I meet up with Shaza who I shared a room with last night. She is from Syria and is a journalist/ writer. We are both hot and have spotted the showers at the sports centre. Thankful to be able to get a wash and change after running about all day. A short time later we will be leaving and the next hour is spent having some tea, trying to get online and meeting people. There are lots of cameras and journalists and I get my picture taken by an IHH journalist.

Before we get ourselves and our bags onto the coaches the whole group gathers together to pay respects to the lost IHH members Faruk Aktas and Bahattin Yildiz . It is moving to see the whole crowd assembled while prayers are said.

Brother Bulent the leader and presidet of IHH also addressed the room but unfortunately not in English but I know it would have been reassuring and motivating!

A coach ride to the port and a chaotic walk through the waiting crowds, through passport control and baggage check and onto the ship. Having problems getting pictures up here just now.

Meeting a VIP

2010-05-27T00:09:00.000-07:00

Last night I met a passenger - Archbishop Ilarion Kaputce. He is in charge of a church called Santa Maria in Rome and he lives in the Vatican. He was Archbishop in Jerusalem from 1964. In 1974 he was sentenced to 12 years in Israeli prison for the charge of helping the Palestinian resistance. He spent 4 years in prison in Israel. The Pope then intervened on his behalf and he was released to Rome. On arrival in Rome he discovered the condition of his release - he must never return to Palestine. He said if he had known this he would have rather stayed in prison.

He is coming on the ships to Gaza.

The archbishop is being looked after by a man called Nabil who I met and he introduced me. Nabil is instantly likeable with a sense of humour and lots of energy, he's been working on the upcoming Summer University of Palestine to be held in Lebanon in the last weekend of July.

Special mention

2010-05-26T01:13:00.001-07:00

One person who has been a major part of the UK group's contribution to this trip has not been mentioned yet so I wanted to make sure she is. Rummanah is Imran's daughter, she is 13 years old and I met her when I went to Bolton to pick up the lorry 10 days ago. Imran and Babu work together on organising for the fundraising and aid in Bolton. While I was picking up the lorry she was making copies of the paperwork, typing up the manifest details and she made sure we had a Palestine flag with love for Palestine written on it to decorate the cab.

Imran tells me Rummanah was constantly asking him what she could do as she wanted to take part so much in work to support Gaza. Her dad was on the first land convoy with Viva Palestina and when he returned she baked him a cake in Palestinian flag colours. This time she has surpassed herself. Rummanah organised a dinner in Bolton the tickets for which sold out - the event itself ended up raising £5,500. The money has been used to buy the aid and support the journey.

Without you Rummanah we wouldn't be here! Thank you.

To Antalya

2010-05-25T14:28:00.000-07:00

At 5.30am Emine wakes me and we all share cheese,eggs, olives, jam, bread and tea together. Then Murat and his brother take us to the airport. Their care and concern for us is overwhelming. 'But you would look after us if we came to UK?' - I would hope I could get anywhere close to this hospitality.

We have a painless flight - apart from Mustafa is certainly sick and has stomach cramps now as well. I sleep in the seat for the hour. Landing in Antalya we go to the airport health centre to try to get some advice - the doctor there wants Mustafa to get some sleep - he then also wants to speaj with Mustafa about Middle East politics - hmmm very healing.

We get out of there and taxi to places to stay. Being a lady I have a separate hotel and the men have a sports hall - I fear Mustafa won't get much rest there. I bid farewell and get orientated. First thing to replace the phone I left in Biren's cab - I get a second hand Nokia, another sim and credit sorted for about £40. Then I get back to the hotel and have a rest - this turns into 3 hours sleep.

Up at 6pm and I make my way to the sports hall where the main group are. On the steps its great to see Kevin, Nicci and Zaher. Sadly Adnan from our group has to go back to UK and is on his way home. Inside the hall there's lots of activity - interviews with media, people on laptops, tea being handed round. Arrangements being made. I find Mustafa and he is still not well. Luckily Arief - Indonesian doctor has found him and is monitoring him. He advises get to a quiet place to rest. We all get a lift to a hotel near the ladies place and its a good clean ensuite for £20 - perfect. Hopefully by tomorrow with a good few hours sleep he will have a chance to recover.

Border control

2010-05-24T02:00:00.000-07:00

Last night Mustafa and I drove from Istanbul to the border with Bulgaria. I need to get rid of the lorry from my passport otherwise I'll have a problem when I try to leave from Antalya port where we need to depart with the group. In order to do this in time to catch up with the group we had to book an internal flight from Istanbul to Antalya for tonight. I need to get to a lorry park just inside Bulgaria. At the moment we are sitting in the border cafe where there's free wifi. We are waiting while Customs try to arrange to get the deposit back I made when I came in with cargo. This is about £600, and its taken since 8am until now 12pm to get any sort of progress. Thankfully I have Mustafa who can speak Turkish. We have met with a lot of supportive individuals sympathetic with Palestine.

Last night we ended up sleeping in a beautiful masjid next to the border. It was totally empty and peaceful.

The rest of the group set off in coaches from Istanbul and have now reached Antalya. Before leaving we had an orientation meeting with IHH and signed our waiver forms.

IHH meeting

Later on...
By 9pm we still haven't left Turkey Bulgaria border to try to rejoin the team. It was a mistake coming to such a major border last night. There were lines of trucks and the staff who were on when we got there were not authorised to help with returning deposits so we had to wait until the morning. That seemed fine until it has now taken all day and significant physical exertion and still no deposit. Despite getting to the Turkish Custom Directors office in good time (before 9am) and a good start with him including tea, chat, agreements etc - by the end of the day all I have is a letter to take to a bank. The one good thing is that the lorry is off my passport and parked in Bulgaria safely. On the way to the border some lorry drivers there told us about a truck park 20km inside Bulgaria run by a Turkish man called Ilyas. It seemed straightforward but took hours. On the border ,which is large with many booth/ offices, we seemed to ping pong between people for the entire morning while everyone decided whether or not we could in fact get the money back here. A helpful lady in an upstairs office said yes of course we can get it here, however she did not herself pick up the telephone to the original customs office on the Greek border. Communications were duly sent off and fax confirmation received back. Then a letter had to be drafted up by grumpy men who didn't want to, multiple copies of these had to be made and signed by the Director, having completed everything we were told 30 minutes, then 20 then when we returned everyone disappeared for lunch! Because of time constraint we have to make the decision to make a break out of the Bulgarian side with the vehicle - to park it up and return for the deposit. Perhaps by then the paperwork will be done... First need to put a bit more diesel in. At the pumps in the middle of the border I try to fill but the man says these pumps are for full lorries. We have to move on. We get to Bulgarian Customs with nothing to declare. They want to have a look. Their approach is pretty casual, they tear off a piece of paper from a scrap in the cab, stamp it, ask me to write the reg plate down and join a queue, they don't take any money we are in EU now. Passing through the Bulgarian border vehicles are given a usb stick - with each check, weight, passport, customs more info is added and the final officer takes the stick back. When we get out into Bulgaria we stop at the diesel shop. When we try to put some fuel in I can see I've dropped the diesel tank lid somewhere in no-man's land, this is extremely annoying. I think it must be near the last station and think it might be worth going to have a look - the girls in the shop lend me a bike so I cycle back through the border much to the amusement of all the officers. No diesel lid. So we have to put a band over some plastic over the tank and leave. Luckily the Tomtom is working again now and the address the drivers gave us for parking comes up. The town is called Ljubimets and we struggle a little bit to find the place.

Eventually we find it and park up the small lorry amongst all the other big ones. I truck driver offers us a lift to the border. As we approach Turkey again the truck has to join a 3 km long queue - I have an hour to get back to the customs office so I leave Mustafa in the cab with the driver and strike out on foot.
Vodka doctor's shop in Bulgaria

I get back to the border and to the office in 50 minutes so manage to catch them before closing. However instead of the cash I have been given a letter for a bank where I'm told I now need to go to pick it up. Well this is great! five past five and no bank will be open and a 7.30am flight to catch to Antalya from Istanbul - useless. I speak to the cashier on the border but he can't help - why the cashier could not have been included in the process 5 hours ago I have no idea. So he says I can use the letter another time. Time to make a move to Istanbul.

Mustafa and I eat some fast food from the centre on the pavement next to the passport control. A taxi driver is trying to persuade us we need to get a ride to Edirne and catch a but from there - however I would prefer a lift if possible. By chance a driver with a large load of pieces of lorry is passing and he says he will take us - his name is Biren. We have an hour or so before setting off so I make the most of the showers available in the truck stop and get completely scrubbed and changed. I have been camping, running, walking and cycling today so this is completely needed. Mustafa is not well. He is dehydrated, has a cold, is fatigued and has walked across the border with our things himself. Biren gives us his cab keys while he sorts out customs paperwork - he is also very interested and supportive of the Freedom Flotilla and was curious when he saw me earlier cyling and wandering about the border looking crazy.
Biren's lorry that customs won't let through due to one letter on one machine not being correct

Customs have something up their sleeve for Biren as well - inspecting his vehicle they identify that one of the seven or so machines loaded onto his lorry has one letter wrong on the paperwork. One letter! They won't let him go. Despite this he calls a friend and by 11.30 he has swapped into a different cab and moves us with him. Mustafa can hear him in Turkish saying to the customs officer 'are you trying to kill me I need to get these people to the airport'. I can't believe how he is in fact more concerned about us than his cargo! Amazing. We hit the road and on the way stop at a truck stop for food along with his friend Zach - they both share place and work from Brussels and I can speak French with Zach. After the stop I go in Zach's cab and we can chat for a while - he then suggests I sleep on the cab bed for a bit - this is most welcome as the exertion has tired me out today.

During the day Murat from Istanbul phone shop has been in touch with Mustafa to check how things are going. He insists he and his brother are going to meet us when the trucks get into Istanbul and pick us up. True to his word he arranges a rendez vous point with Biren and at 2am I am woken from the cab and put into a car. We go to Murat's brother's home a wonderfully tidy spacious flat. Murat's sister in law Emine and nephew Ercan are up as well and we are given herbal tea with honey, lemon and biscuits, its clear Mustafa is under the weather and is suffering from a head cold as well as exhaustion. They put us to bed - out instantly.

Married to a lorry

2010-05-23T04:08:00.001-07:00

It turns out that as I drove the vehicle in to Turkey as transit that I can't leave without it.. so I have to get the vehicle into a customs park or get it out of the country somehow before I will be able to leave. This means either driving it to Antalya port or back to Greece. Everyone is getting a coach tonight from Istanbul to Antalya to join the ship. I'm going to be assisted by Shakir (of Viva Palestina 3 enormous lorry fame) to sort something out about this lorry before catching up with the group.

Passenger ship launch from Istanbul

2010-05-22T10:23:00.002-07:00

Passenger ship launched from Istanbul port today 22nd May. I got up and managed to rush through some breakfast sitting with the rest of UK group before we had to make our way to the port side for a press conference and ship launch. Getting closer to the location in a cab with Mustapha, Tox and Ibrahim it became clear that this event is large. There are families and people making their way along the road towards the ship. I can see bags of red white and green balloons strapped to the back of the vessel. Huge crowd, lots of press and cameras, Palestinian and IHH flags.

A variety of people make speeches which I cannot understand as they are in Arabic or Turkish.

Then Fatima and Julia from Belgium and I jump onto a small boat that is one of 25 bobbing about near the docked passenger ship. All the boats are full of people waving flags and shouting support and the dockside is also full. There are children onboard and we make conversation, eat bread and have a cup of coffee while waiting for the big ship to be released. Finally the Mavi Marmara is released and steams away from the port side accompanied by the smaller boats for a short distance. The atmosphere is excitable and the sheer number and sound of the crowd is awesome.

IHH, Istanbul,unloading, loading

2010-05-21T16:15:00.001-07:00

Morning brings a meet up with our brothers Babu and Hassan at breakfast as we are all staying at the same place. The hotel is a short walk from IHH offices and we get up there before 10am. Nalan says there is a minibus going to the cargo port right now - only two spaces so Babu and I go immediately. Have to leave Darryl and Hassan. Darryl has a flight to catch from an airport that is advertised as Istanbul by Easyjet but turns out to be 60km away with no simple way of getting there. A little later I hear from Darryl to say he's got a coach to the airport. Well done and thank you so much Darryl for dropping everything for a random and exhausting journey.

So Babu and I get into the cargo port and join a line of 10 lorries (we're the smallest). During the day I see around 20. The ship is enormous and has two massive cargo holds. The scale of the operation being mounted by IHH is absolutely massive and hugely impressive. There is an enormous crane lifting items constantly into the cargo hold. There are huge industrial size brand new generators waiting on the port wrapped and ready to go. There are lorry loads of timber, tiles, cement, bed/ sofa sets lining up to be put on.

Babu moves the truck around so we are in a good location to unload and repack the cargo from UK. There are pallets that turn up eventually but before this we get the chance to have a look around the vessel and meet the captain. There are multiple volunteers working on the ship. During the day welders come to fix a platform onto the ship which they say will support the crane that needs to lift the goods out at the other end - as there is no viable port in Gaza yet. Everything seems to have been thought of and where there is a problem a practical solution will be found.

We need to get on with the job of repacking the donated items from UK. There is a mixture of things from 125 shoeboxes of small items such as toothpaste, socks, toys each suitable for a boy or girl. These have been put to gether by children in Bolton UK. Other larger items include a dental chair, a baby incubator, patient monitors, dialysis machine, hospital bed. There are also boxes of medical consumables surgical gloves etc. We get everything out onto pallets and wrap it in protective clingfilm. Only Babu and I are allowed into the cargo port because are with the vehicle, Hassan is not able to get in, so we are helped by various IHH workers who are in the port to load the other cargo. The main organiser brings IHH t shirts, cling film, protective gloves, big clear tape, trays of water bottles and at lunch time (ends up around 3pm..) sandwiches and pop. By 6pm we have repacked and labelled everything with Hayfa Medical Centre, Gaza Tofa and leave it on the side of the port to be winched into the ship.

At the end of the day we are knackered and I'm a bit sunburned but apart from that very satisfied.

Lorry to Launch final leg

2010-05-21T14:49:00.001-07:00

As the ferry does not depart until 1.30pm its not a rush in the morning - lucky because we needed the 9 hours sleep to catch up. Its pretty easy to get the lorry on - just expensive - €590. The man is not negotiable on price - I try three times. So we get onto the lorry - I am driving and reversing it down the line nearly kills my left leg on the clutch. With freight tickets you automatically get a cabin and discount on food which is good (but thet least you'd expect for the price). Its a very comfortable ferry with wifi onboard, hot shower, sun deck etc. A truck driver chats to us and is very friendly and supportive of the trip - it seems he wants to talk and his wife asked him for a divorce 20 days ago. He's going to see a counsellor tomorrow. Its hard to advise really! He asks whether or not he should stop the phone calls and presents - I think definitely yes - take the pressure off - let her come to you if there's any chance.... but it sounds like it may be a bit far gone. What are the main arguments about - MONEY!! The driver is Greek and both he and one of the waiters mention the Greek financial crisis - its obviously made them worried.

I try to get some emails and updates done then make the most of having a cabin and get more sleep. Arriving in Greece we need to head for a service station - its a beautiful morning and there's a very friendly mongrel bitch with a puppy playing while we get some breakfast - enormous fresh bread cheese and coleslaw sandwiches and great coffee. Can't hang around too long so its onto the beautiful A2 road all the way across Greece to the Turkish border. Its very uneventful and easy - apart from a diversion for 30 minutes that takes us onto a very bendy road with hills and a small bridge that I really don't like the look of - but get over it.

At the Greece-Turkey border it seems there is some messing about to do. Greek customs take a copy of the medical invoice and stamp our export slip so that is no problem. Turkish customs want a bit more time and paperwork. We have to get visas, straightforward - then in order to get the van through I have to get some sort of transit paperwork completed which guarantees that we are taking the stuff straight through Turkey not stopping to sell it etc anywhere. This includes the vehicle which gets associated with my passport so I need to be with it empty at the next border in order to get back a large cash deposit they said I needed to make - in Turkish Lire the equivalent of almost £600. Finally we get away and on to Istanbul. Nearing the city I ring Nalan to find out where we need to go. She lets cargo workers from IHH know and they are going to meet us on one of the main roads into Turkey. She explains we need to be on the green road (there are two main roads into Istanbul the autobahn (toll) and the freeway (non-toll)) this sounds fine however one road is green on the map and the other blue, the road signs are the opposite colour scheme. We work out we need to be on the toll-road and finally meet the IHH contacts at the toll at around 10.30pm. They escort us to the port and the lorry is able to get parked in the cargo port.

We get dropped to sleep at a hotel in Fatih area of town and the paperwork and cargo will all be dealt with tomorrow. I text Babu to let him know the good news that we are safely at our destination. He rings and tells me he and Hassan have just landed in Istanbul so we are all going to be here tomorrow to work on the cargo.

Lorry to Launch...

2010-05-18T21:49:00.001-07:00

It is my last day of work on Friday but I check my timesheet and it shows lots of hours owed to me therefore taking Friday off will not be a problem. It's just likely to be a bit of a sudden goodbye to my team. So on Thursday I go into work and let everyone know. I don't know how she does it but Caroline B somehow has organised to get my leaving card and present together a day early and everyone gets together in the kitchen so say good bye. Its a very strange feeling after four years, they are a lovely bunch and have been very generous and give me some cash, coffee and vouchers showing Oxfam donations they have made (what not Viva Palestina!!!!! ;) ) . During the afternoon I hear from Babu again, he now says he does not think they do want me to take the vehicle any more but he's waiting for one of his group to return who he wants to discuss it with. There's still a chance so I decide its best to continue as if I am going and get ready in case. There is quite a lot to do at work to finish things off so I end up staying in the office until almost ten in the evening. Luckily I'm there with Amy who is working late when we both leave and start to walk towards my car I first realise the car is now locked in the car park due to the hour and I also don't have my jacket or any keys. I must have either left them at Civic Centre offices where I went earlier in the day or in the boss's car who I got a lift with. Thankfully Amy invites me to crash at hers and we both get in knackered and share a beer, chocolate, crisps and a good chat before a welcome sleep (comfy sofa bed).
Friday's first mission is to try to find missing jacket and keys. I head to the Civic Centre in Enfield and up to the relevant floor - not there. I leave a message for the boss on his mobile. Then I have nothing much to do so I go to the Civic hotdesk area where I can still log on to the computers and make the most of it by putting my cv up on a website that recruits for Multi-Systemic Therapy programmes. At around 11.30 I am just finishing my cv when the alarm goes off in the Civic centre and the entire building has to evacuate. At the same time I hear from the boss - thankfully he has my jacket in his car and he is not far away from where I am so I can pick it up in an hour. It turns out the alarm at Civic is because there was a call made to the Youth Offending Service by someone claiming to have put an explosive device in YOS offices and Civic centre. Whilst evacuating I bump into Barbara A from our Panel and we go for a cup of coffee until the drama is over. During coffee time Babu calls again and says the mission is back on so this is great. By 1pm I have my jacket and keys back and head home to pack for the trip. I am a bit stuck for a co-driver as Joti would not be able to get back in time for work and other volunteers have had to pull out for various reasons. I text Darryl who is a friend who has supported Gaza campaign in the past and attended my Feb convoy event - I know he is self-employed and therefore may be able to be flexible. After around half an hour he confirms he's able to come - brilliant! Having been on convoy in December I know I will only need a few essentials - notepad, pens, torch, soap, toothbrush, light jacket, couple of t-shirts, socks, headtorch, passport, driving licence. Everything fits into a mini-backpack. Then to quickly catch up with nearest and dearest in London before set off tomorrow - meet Jess for a couple of small beers and an early night.
Saturday morning I have to get some keys cut and buy a Europe satnav which should make all the difference for the journey, with these accomplished I meet Jess for a bite to eat and then head to Euston to get train to Bolton to pick up the vehicle. I'm there by 5.30 and meet with Babu and Imran for final organising.

Babu shows me round the truck. They spent last night packing the items into the vehicle - because they were doing this outside his shop and it was late apparently someone called the police who came to investigate in case his shop was being burgled! At Imran's we make copies of the detailed customs manifest list, photocopies of essential documents like log book, passport etc.

We also try to work out how the tachometer works so I won't get a fine in Europe for not following the drivers' hours rules. By the time we have done this and gone for delicious hot food at a nearby restaurant it is 11pm and I need to get back to London so I can set off in the morning. I follow Babu and Imran to the motorway and wave off. As I go to change gear the gearstick comes off in my hand!! But it goes back on no problem. The vehicle has 6 gears so once travelling Ican stick it in the cruise gear quite comfortably. It does occasionally slip out of this gear it seems but it is nothing major. I will have to park the truck outside the low emission zone as it is over 10 years old 7.5 ton and this class is now banned in town. This shouldn't be a problem as I can park it next to the station in Cheshunt which is easily accessed by train from liverpool st. I realise I am not going to make it to London before 3am and by then I will have missed public transport into town. I ring Tufty and he is a star and says he will meet me - I have to meet him to make sure he gets into my flat to get his tools out as well. So at just gone 3am I make it to the empty car park meet Tufty and go home to pick up what he needs. It turns out I might be able to say hello and goodbye to a few people who are at a big birthday party in Dalston where he is going - so we both go there and I see lots of buddies for an hour. Then its time to go home and sleep for a few hours before setting off.

8am and two hours sleep later its time to get going. I meet Darry at Liverpool St station and we head to Cheshunt, jump into the cab and after filling up head towards Folkestone setting off at about 10 - using satnav for the first time is a novelty. What I have noticed this morning is that I haven't worked out the tachometer correctly - it has not registered my journey at all last night. It the services I ask a man who's just filled up a pick up if he knows any thing. He tries to explain but either he's telling me conflicting advice or its not sinking in. I try again with the tacho paper. Its really clear and its a smooth run until on M20 we are selected by police motorbike to take part in a VOSA spot check.

I am quite confident we should be ok as the vehicle has just been MOT'd and serviced - and I am a new expert on the tacho..... However when the inspectors have a look at the vehicle it seems there may be one or two problems. I show the inspectors the thick file of paperwork and explain to them what our trip is about and the deadline to get to Turkey. First the tachometer man has a look and sees that the paper has not been recording correctly, secondly the nearside inside tyre on the back seems to be punctured, thirdly we appear to be overweight from the weighbridge slip. Hmmmm. The tacho man goes off to consider, the tyre man issues me with a prohibition notice - until the tyre is fixed I'm not allowed to continue. As luck would have it there is a mechanic lurking around the car park - how convenient... and how busy he must find himself having to deal with the issues that may be arising in the car park on this sunny VOSA check afternoon. We get into the back of the vehicle where there is a tyre - however this one does not appear to be in excellent nick either and its not on a rim. He makes a call and checks with a colleague about wheels they have and goes off to pick one up. He also works out that the weighbridge slip appears to have recorded the overall weight twice therefore in fact we are not 16 tons we are 8 tons - which is fine. The tacho man comes back with some good news - because our vehicle and contents is 'humanitarian aid' we are exempt from all drivers' hours restrictions in the EU. This is great because it would have been really fiddly to have to try to use it on this journey - and it doesn't seem to be working either. They give us the piece of paper that explains that we are humanitarian aid and exempt from EU rules - fantastic. There is a slight panic when the tyre VOSA inspector says he is leaving at 3.30pm and the mechanic is not back. Then he offers to come and meet us to inspect after hours so we can get moving! Wow more fantastic.

While waiting for the fixing to get done I chat to the police officers who are sympathetic to the situation in Gaza. One of them has a daughter who is doing psychology so we talk about that and I suggest she might enjoy youth offending work. We also talk about The mechanic returns, the tyre gets changed and we are signed off. A couple of hours delay but it is good overall as otherwise we would have been fiddling with a tachometer all the way ax Europe plus if we had not detected the puncture we could have easily had another blow out in Europe but more seriously and with much more expense.

So on the road again we get to Folkestone and get into the freight office to buy a ticket - I ask about getting the invoice stamped for the medical hardware a charity in Bolton has bought so they can prove export and claim VAT back. It seems this cannot be done at the Channel Tunnel freight office but they advise we go to Dover if we really want the proof. It is worth it for the £700 or so they could reclaim so we go to Dover to a customs agent to process this piece of paper, getting charged £25 for the privilege.

Finally onto the Channel Tunnel freight train at around 6pm for the short dash across the sea.

It feels like we have not got very far in one day. I decide we are going to have to drive straight through to Ancona without stopping if we have any chance of making the ferry so we start off with me driving. The stereo doesn't work properly and we give up on that. We set the satnav and it gives us a route through Switzerland into Italy. The roads are clear and the satnav indicates we should get to Ancona port late morning. However as we drive along the eta is getting later and later obviously as we are slower due to size. It is going to be tight.

During the night Darryl and I swap shifts in driving and sleeping for two hours each and by 6.30 am we have reached Basel border with Switzerland. Due to being in a lorry we have to go through the freight section and we look pretty hilarious in a 10+ year old ex-refrigerated van which is only 6.5 m long amongst all the new Scania road trains. I have to take the paperwork into the offices on the border to explain the situation and find out what we have to do.

The Swiss customs man is very helpful but indicates there may be a problem on Italian border due to the Italian customs requiring a 'Transit Form' for any vehicle wishing to cross Switzerland without stopping because they are not in the EU. Therefore because I will have technically crossed out of EU then back into EU so apparently this is a problem. Anyway he helpfully stamps all of the paperwork in terms of the Customs manifest and sets us up to travel across Switzerland, he asks if it is all humanitarian and second hand which I confirm it is - therefore he says we should be ok. He also takes a deposit of £650 from my card and promises this will be refunded onto my card at the other end. The whole process takes about an hour and a half because we had to record mileage and register before crossing Switzerland. The Swiss customs guy maybe didn't know what the border security or services would be like.....but then again maybe he did because he had a little smile when he sent us through....

Everything is going smoothly until we try to leave Switzerland at Chiassi where we arrive at around 11am. We attempt to drive out of the exit for cars and empty vans. The security stop us and ask what we have in the van. I get out and explain that we have humanitarian aid destined for Palestine - the Italian customs lady will not hear my explanation that the load is non-commercial and they request us to go to the freight customs processing area. So duly we do this, when there it appears the Swiss customs man was right. I go from Swiss customs to Italian customs officers in the same building several times with our paperwork. The Swiss officer says he does not have a problem letting us through from Switzerland but it is the Italian customs that are requesting a 'Transit form'. The Italian customs say it is a Swiss problem because they are not in the EU but despite this they have allowed us through. We apparently need a Transit form to give to Italian customs. This should have been set up by an agent in UK or somewhere previously. There may be a company that can assist us in a building near the freight area. I go to investigate and after a considerable amount of messing about including being told the wrong floor, no boss being there and the assistant making a call I am told that the charge for doing the form here will be €350!! I thank them for the kind offer and decline. I return to Italian customs and explain the situation again, 1. We have paid to come through Switzerland, 2. Swiss customs have passed us through, 3. the cargo is all humanitarian and second-hand/ donated, 4. we have a ferry to catch, 5. we cannot afford €350. Finally they go away and discuss the situation for ten minutes. I am then advised that my best bet is to go and make my case at the head office of Italian customs at Chiassi. This is a 7 minute walk away so duly get there with paperwork and story in hand. I am met there with sympathetic ears and the man in charge asks me a bit about the vehicle - everyone has a good look at the customs manifest and he comes up with a plan. He will personally take us through a smaller crossing in the town, he says he is sorry but the original customs officers at the non-commercial crossing should have let us through, in future to avoid any issues he advises go to get something called a Carnet from an agent in London. By 2.30pm we are through the border and on the way to Ancona. We have missed all the ferry options by now though.

Its straight through to Ancona and we are in town by 8.45pm. Locate a youth hostel for €17 and park up the lorry in the dock area. We grab some very decent pizza before crashing out exhausted after what has been in effect a 36 hour journey so far.

2010-05-15T08:36:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I travelled with Tox and Hasna to Dundalk in Ireland to take a van load of items collected and packed by Slough Team to put onto Free Gaza movement ship MV Rachel Corrie. We packed up the van at Talha's house in Slough by 9pm - then had to leg it to get to Holyhead by 2:30am in order to get across to Dublin. Amazingly we made it thanks to Tox's careful driving and all credit to his dad for lending the vehicle. It was packed to the rafters (if van's have rafters..).

Staff onboard Irish Ferries were brilliant and gave us a 3 berth cabin free of charge for the three hours so we managed to crash out. Hot shower in there was amazing. We arrived in about 6 then an hour and a half later were in the port of Dundalk. It was a lovely sunny morning and very quiet around town. It was easy to find the port which is small and there were two cargo ships there one of which was MV Racel Corrie. Around 8am Jenny emerged one of Free Gaza members and we asked all about the plans. The ship was to be inspected in a few days in order for it to be able to set sail to the Med. Free Gaza had the use of a warehouse near the ship so donations could be unloaded. We went to town to grab some breakfast then to start work to unload. When we got back a large lorry had arrived and various large hospital hardware was being unloaded. This was Dr Hassan who had come from Scotland with his son Adam. Another vehicle also arrived from Dublin and a little later from Cork. Additionally Niamh also Free Gaza in another van.

We spent the rest of the day putting the items onto pallets and wrapping them tightly in large cling film to secure and proteect them. We also labelled the goods to decribe what was in the consignment and record destinations when they had been donated particularly for a certain project. For example a woman Yael had come to my flat the day before with a box of artists materials destined for a particular project in Rafah, I had several boxes of new trainers donated by Tufty of Public Nuisance fame and these are going to the Camps Breakerz. Dr Hassan's medical equipment is going to Al-Haifa Hospital. We had some office equipment destined for the Local Initiative in Beit Hanoun. Much of the other items were generally donated medical items such as tubing, syringes, swabs etc. All the items Abid had driven to Cork the previous weekend from Gloucester were also brought from there including wheelchairs and frames for walking.

It was a really good day. We met local sub-aqua rescue men who are also firemen and report for the local radio station - I was briefly interviewed for Dundalk local radio on behalf of Slough / London team. There was a Norwegian documentary maker present who had been with Free Gaza for several days - he filmed us packing.

The trip was rapid turnaround - at 7pm we headed back to Dublin port to catch the ferry back to Holyhead. Departed at 20.55 and again the crew gave us a berth - angels. The van was low on diesel and we headed off the ferry at midnight with the intention of stopping at the first service station. Unfortunately this was not soon enough.. so we ran out of gas around 20 minutes out of Holyhead. Oh dear, in the dark in North Wales at 1am. A car passing by stopped for us and I went with them to the nearest petrol station. At the garage there was a police car dealing with a minor incident so the driver of the car asked the officers to take me back to the vehicle with the can of diesel. I was duly returned to Tox and Hasna and we waved the officers good bye... somewhat prematurely. We couldn't start the van as there was air in the system now. Had to resort to calling out the AA.... Anyway they eventually got us going and we were on the road again - even if two hours delayed. Tox was a trooper and drove us all safely home to London. We talked and talked! We covered most topics you can think of from art to afterlife. Hasna must have wondered if we were mad. However she herself is mad as today she is jumping out of an aeroplane for sponsorship money for Gaza. So fair's fair.

On Wednesday 12th May I got a call from Babu in Bolton who was on the convoy. Unfortunately they had not been able to get their vehicle full of donations (dental units, baby incubator, dialysis machines) to Dundalk to load onto the MV Rachel Corrie. Therefore the items need to be taken to Istanbul if possible. Can I do it? Well this is my last week at work so I will be available very shortly. Babu reckons we need to leave on Friday. I need a co-driver. Weds is our Hackney Palestine Solidarity Campaign meeting. I make it to that and hope that Joti who was on the convoy may be able to step up. She's at home tonight not far from the meeting so I go and see her afterwards and we look at the options. Joti is now back at work part-time therefore she needs to be back by Tuesday morning. Online it looks just about do-able, Googlemaps says its a 34 hour drive....

On Thursday afternoon Babu calls again - not quite sure if it will be ok for me to go with the items. There is concern over trying to get there too quickly, for us as lone females being safe etc.

One day in Gaza

2010-02-28T08:36:00.000-08:00

The hosts are trying to get us up and moving. We are given breakfast and tea and the bus to the car park / air strip is waiting for us. We need to take any more personal stuff out of the vehicles and the aid is being handed over. The process seems to take a long time. Some people who already have contacts for their aid are meeting up with them and here is our man for the specialist stethoscopy equipment again this time with his van.

Its sad to leave this vehicle which I've spent so much time with recently but thats it now. I just have a bag of personal things (all chaotically scattered) and that's all. I leave the sleeping bag, mats, tents, cooker, food, water in the back. Lock up, leave the keys in the ignition and ready to go.

While wandering around the car park I meet a man in a wheelchair with a large camera. He lost his legs in the bombing last year. He works as a photographer and his wife is also with him she works for an organisation supporting women. While I am speaking to them I meet Nitin and Mond. Nitin has managed to get into Gaza from the Freedom March. He realised the Freedom March was not going to be a viable way to get in after chaos in Cairo and approached the Indian embassy in Cairo for a letter of support. Mond is a Gaza resident and he is walking around with Nitin. We decide to move on together. The next stop after the car park handover is an event at what remains of the Palestinian Legislative Council building.

George G and others are making speeches here. I wander around the crowd and then around the back of the building where a soldier is very helpful and friendly taking pictures for me. I let the young people gathering around us with big grins on their faces borrow a camera to take pics of each other.

The crowd is moving on the a large conference hall nearby. There we are given commemorative books, a scarf and offered seats for hearing with Ismail Hanya the Prime Minister. I realise that this is another event which may go on for some time and I'd really like to get out and look around a bit if possible.

Mond asks who I would like to meet. I want to meet music producers or performers as I'd be interested in looking at the possibility of getting Fairtunes to work in Gaza. Mond gets on the mobile and we get out of the conference centre and to a coffee shop not too far away. After a short time some guys arrive who are from CampsBreakerz - BBoys breakdance crew. Shortly after this musicians from a band called Watar. Moh from Camps Breakerz has his laptop and plays footage from some of their past performances. We drink coffee and smoke a shisha and copy some music from my hard drive. When Watar come they play a song about Gaza on guitar which is beautiful. Tom plays some of his music from his band Divine Chaos.

We don't have a lot of time and soon John 'Tyrone to Gaza' Hurson is meeting members of Gaza City Sporting club to donate kit for Gaelic football. So we walk over as its not too far away.

Finally into Gaza 6th January 2010

2010-02-28T07:06:00.000-08:00

The morning after the riot there are lots of people with visible injuries, bandages, arms in slings. We are told to be ready to leave in an hour - this is at around 10 or 11am. However we are in fact milling about the port compound all day. I discover a clean loo and bathroom in the port building, an employee shows me where it is - he offers me and other convoy members tea, bread and apologies for the conduct of the Egyptian authorities towards the convoy. I am a bit surprised by this considering that during the riot the gate has come off the port, some windows have been smashed and some paving broken up - which I say I'm sorry about. This does not seem to be any problem at all to him. He is just warm and welcoming and does not blame anyone in the convoy for any of the trouble.

Convoy meeting
Nidal's head

During the morning I am contacted by London Evening Standard for an update on what has happened. They have got my number from my brother Charlie who I rang last night when the riot was kicking off. He also gets in touch to say he contacted Press Association, Sky News, Channel 4.

During the afternoon there is gathering in the centre of the compound for George to address the crowd. He offers support to the injured and encouragement to the members for the final leg of the journey. He states his position on those protesters that returned violence to the riot police - his view is that while he has always respected those who are able to turn the other cheek 'it is not in my tradition' and he supports the right of those who threw stones back at the riot police to do this as they have had stones thrown at them. Some members of the convoy are very unhappy about the sequence of events and one even asks if he will resign as a result of the violent clashes. George calls for a show of hands on this and it seems the majority would prefer him to remain leading the convoy.

During the gathering a worried sister of one of the arrested members comes up and says the prisoners have been kept in a truck outside with no bathroom or water for 15 hours. I get a tray of water bottles to try to take this to the vehicle - I am not allowed out of the compound but I see Caiomhe is outside and can pass them to her. Within around an hour or so the prisoners are returned to us battered and bruised. A security officer has a bag of their mobile phones and cameras which he gives to me and I track the individuals down to return them. Unfortunately Nidal's camcorder is not there, he says it was smashed anyway. I can't locate the officer who gave me the items to ask about it.

The vehicles are all lining up now to queue to get out of the compound. On my mobile I am hearing from Lena, an Italian journalist who lives in Beirut. She has managed to get transport to catch up with us and will try to travel with the convoy for the final leg and try to come into Gaza. I can't get out of the gate to meet her but she manages to find Caoimhe in a vehicle that's already got out up ahead.

Eventually we get to leave the compound, they're letting us through really slowly in groups of around ten vehicles at a time. Its almost dark. While waiting in the line outside on the road some Egyptian ambulance workers come over to talk. As I have the laptop, hard drive and blank cds I ask one what music he would like - he says something romantic - so I give him a copy of an album of Frank Sinatra. We listen to our copy of Frank Sinatra on the road to Gaza.

We get to the border in slow time still, there are lots of road blocks on the way. Not with security staff but just places we have to wiggle through a bit. At the Palestinian side of the Rafah border we hand over our passports, nobody minds giving their passports to Palestinian border control. I feel very happy that we are going through. Just inside as we move slowly through a man approaches my cab - he is asking after vehicle A12 - he is the doctor who is waiting for the equipment we picked up in Amman! He must have been waiting patiently all evening and possibly all day. Its brilliant to be able to reassure him that the vehicle and its precious content is just behind us.

I can hardly stay on the road for tiredness. Perhaps it is the relief of getting into Gaza finally but I can hardly keep awake. We are driving slowly following whoever is in front. Occasionally a vehicle with armed men in it passes. There are a few people still at the roadside but it is around 3am now so most of the crowds have sensibly gone home. We end up parking up the vehicles together on what turns out to be the old airstrip near Gaza City. A text message tells us that accommodation is provided in teams. However in practice this just causes more confusion as there is not time to organise into teams with buses waiting for us who just want us to get our personal stuff and jump in it is so late. A group of us end up at the Al-Ahli sporting club. The rooms are basic with two beds with a blanket on each and a loo/ shower. The hosts also want to give us food - rice, chicken, salad, bottles of water; I'm almost too tired to eat but manage to and meanwhile get talking to Yousri who is leading our group. He explains the blockade and siege means limits on what is available, power supplies, water. We want to carry on talking but as we have to be up again in a few hours and are so tired its not possible.

Moving on to Egypt 4th Jan - 6th Jan

2010-02-13T13:32:00.000-08:00

We head back to the camp in the morning for 10 and catch the meeting informing us of the flight details. First flight to depart at 4pm, bus to get to the airport at 1pm. 8pm flight, bus departs camp at 5pm; 12am flight assemble 9pm, 4am flight assemble 1am.

Fascinated with the proceedings Juana?

First flight: Turkish team 1, VP groups A&B, Team America, VP leadership, Jordanian group, Al Jazeera TV.

2nd flight: Turkish team 2, VP groups C&D, VP leadership, Jordanian 2nd group

3rd flight: Turkish team 3, VP teams E, F, G

4th flight: Turkish group 4, Jordanian Group 3, George Galloway

So its time to leave Lattakia and the lovely people who have been looking after us.

Its another celebratory send off from the airport.

The flight is short and when we land at the airport it seems as if everything is going to be fine. George G does a short announcement to the press that are waiting that he has been told by the Governor of Sinai that we are going to move on through to Rafah. We are greeted by local members of the Red Crescent - young people most of them under 20 who give us plastic flowers. However a short time later things get a bit difficult. It seems the visas we are being issued with are being stamped with entry and exit at the same time and there is a local General who tells Kevin the authorities are going to hold on to our passports and we can move on and get to the vehicles and take them to Rafah. He clearly does not understand that everyone has their own vehicle and we will not be going anywhere without both our passports and the rest of the convoy members who will not be arriving until tomorrow. We stage a sit down protest for our passports to be returned. In the middle of this chaos we receive news that the second flight has been diverted to Damascus. We are told this is due to engine trouble but we don't know for sure and hope it is not an exercise to separate us. The protest turns noisier as time goes on.

Some people are catching a bit of sleep on the floor. In the end we are there for 6 or 7 hours before the passports are returned and we move on to crash out for a few hours in a couple of local hotels (dusty, run down).

The next day we are picked up by a bus and taken to the port compound at El Arish sea port. We have to show our passports to get in and these are compared to the list the authorities have. From now on if we want to leave the port compound then we have to hand our passport in and only a small number of people are allowed to leave at a time. By 4 pm the final arrival of members of the convoy has arrived. There have been significant difficulties for the arrivals of all flights and stories of physical struggles with the authorities and bus doors being shut on someone causing injury. The convoy members are by and large exhausted and disorientated after the confusion and delayed long travel.

George G, Zaher and Kevin are going into negotiations with Egyptian authority representative as it has become clear that there is a question mark over some of the vehicles that we are to be allowed to take in. At around 6.30/ 7pm we are informed that the Egyptian representative has left the compound and has left saying the 47 American-bought vehicles (cars) are not going to be allowed through. This is in contrast to the agreement reached at Aqaba. The convoy members are not going to take the reversal of the agreement lying down and a protest is staged at the gates of the port compound about this. It is noisy and one of the gates unfortunately comes off its hinges while the protestors are rattling it.

For several hours from now there are convoy members at the gates gathered, sometimes chanting, sometimes sitting, some walking about the area to the front of the gates which is now surrounded by rows of riot police and a large tanker which is the container of water for the water cannon.

I eventually leave the crowd as it is sitting peacefully and someone is singing prayers in Arabic. I end up sitting in a vehicle in the port talking to some members who are not happy. I am sitting there when a member arrives at the door and he has a golf club in his hand he says the front of the convoy is being attacked by the riot police. He agrees I should take the golf club away as no-one should be putting themselves in a position where they may injure another, injure themselves or be arrested. I go to lock it in my cab, whilst doing this a member Majid runs past me injured and we both jump in my cab - he tells me to get in the back of the vehicle as he feels the cab will not be safe. We can't do this as the back is full of aid. The fear is that the riot police will enter the compound and start to damage the vehicles. After a short time I decide to get out and walk up to see what is going on. As I walk towards the gate I can see a hail of stones coming down on the crowd at the front, shouting, things being broken and general mayhem. The noise and chaos seems to continue for some time - there are guys running about extremely agitated, some are holding their heads, bleeding, I can see some lying injured away at the back of the crowd being treated under lights by those with some medical experience. A short distance away I can see a convoy member attempting to mediate in a situation where there are some Egyptian security staff that some agitated Turkish members are trying to get to. It appears these staff are nothing to do with the riot police of the authorities but have unfortunately been identified as possible Muhabarat by extremely upset individuals. The situation is calmed down. A Team Leaders meeting is called. I go up and all the Team Leaders VP organisers and George G are gathered. George asks us to agree on what the sequence of events was and it appears that shortly after the Egyptian negotiator left the port compound the riot police and other non-uniformed members of security outside. During the evening it appears that non-uniformed security have gathered missiles in the form of pieces of paving slabs and made piles of these behind the riot police lines. When some members of the US convoy have come in from town surprising the riot police they have been treated in a heavy handed way, this has elicited the convoy members from the front of the protest to move towards the fracas, next the lines of riot police have moved towards the crowd and the agent provocateurs have begun launching their missiles onto the crowd. The crowd responds by defending itself, several members have been caught up and some arrested. There are some Egyptian police who have barracked into a room inside the port compound. While we are having the meeting Ellie comes up to say that we should take action to prevent the conflict from starting up again as convoy members on the ground are paranoid that the police are re-grouping to attack and enter the port and are therefore getting ready to defend, moving forward towards the gate which could antagonise the police and spark further incident. So we go down and move among the crowd calming people down. This for me also involves standing in front of a vehicle and preventing it from driving up towards the gate. I also speak to a group of convoy members who are very agitated to ask them to be patient and calm at this point and they do listen. The main calming point is when the Turkish members return to their vehicles as this provides a significant signal to the convoy as a whole that the incident is over.

Days 27-30th - 31st December 2009 - 3rd January 2010 - Lattakia

2010-01-31T13:00:00.000-08:00

31st December 2009

Alpha Team is again only as fast as its slowest members but nevertheless we all manage to leave Sahara Hotel together in the morning and make the journey to Lattakia on the northern coastline of Syria. The landscape becomes green and garden-like as we travel and it looks like a fertile place where lots of produce is probably grown. Again as we get near to the destination and pull over for some fuel we are joined by an escort of police vehicles that will lead us to the stop.

The stop is what looks like a scout camp. There seem to be many supporters of the convoy in and around the camp. There is one set of gates at the main entrance where there is some security. The camp has a multitude of small white huts some of which have iron beds in them and there are a few larger buildings where we can see some more mattresses being pulled out. We are given food in a covered dining room open along one side - long stone or concrete tables and benches. The other edge of the camp is the sea. There is an option to sleep in a hut but I haven't sorted one out yet and I'm happy to sleep in the cab. Richard T is with me now after we picked him up again in Damascus but he goes off and finds a berth in a hut.

Lattakia

Kevin speaks to the convoy at dinner time - first urging people to be more vigilant as we are in a town now and a couple of unattended laptops have gone missing. He tells us that planning is underway for a large ferry to carry the vehicles. It is not known at this time how many people will be able to travel on the boat as it is a cargo ferry not a passenger ferry and there are maritime rules about the number of people that can travel onboard. Kevin hopes that 60 people will be able to travel with it and says this will be voluntary - I take down all the volunteers names - oddly it reaches 60. People very much want to be able to stay with their vehicles. It is then made public that the rest of us will need to take flights and the planes will need to be chartered for this. The Syrian, Turkish and Malaysian governments as well as some private donors and a fundraising effort via Viva Palestina's website is going to pay for this logisitical maneouvre - to the tune of $250,000 it is reckoned.

Turkish members getting camped in

Tonight is New Years Eve so people are determined to celebrate in some way. Richard V has located an off-licence in the area so we walk down there together and pick up a few cans. Some go off to town, some remain in the camp and light a big bonfire. Dejanka, Richard V, Julian, Bob and I also light one as there is a picnic table nearby we can sit at. All evening the camp is surrounded by fireworks being let off by people in an uncoordinated but spectacular way. I wander about the camp and spend the last hour sitting by the bigger bonfire where sounds are being blasted out of the door of a van and there is a shot or two of tequila on the go.

1st January New Years Day 2010

At around 11am I go with Ruqayyah and Amina into Lattakia in a minibus taxi-bus that heads past the camp entrance and into the centre. Its around 15 mins and very easy and cheap. The camp where we are staying is situated in an area where there are many Palestinian refugee families. Originally they lived in the North of Palestine until the Nakba 'the catastrophe' of 1948 led to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fleeing the country to neighbouring lands in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt and wider. Palestinian villages were destroyed and ethnic cleansing took place. Understandably the local population are very supportive of the convoy. It is possible to see that supporters of both Hamas and Fatah political parties are here to provide food, shelter, guidance as evidenced by flags. There are everyday people around too that just want to meet us and many people are invited to homes for tea, food and to stay.

Outside the gates of the scout camp are coffee vans selling great espresso from machines.

In town we manage to track down an ATM and a cafe that has wifi and an internet cafe. It is quiet as it's a Friday and many shops are closed.

You can't use Facebook in Syria (but you can sort of if you know how to access it by adding http's' in front)

Not long in the cafe before we have to head back to the camp for a team leaders meeting - there is much to be sorted out for the logisitics of the next step. There are only nine people from Viva Palestina who can travel on the ship. Each team leader nominates a person from their team. We have to make sure that people know they need to get their personal stuff for the next couple of days off their vehicles as tomorrow we will be loading them onto the cargo ferry and saying goodbye until the charter flights catch up in El Arish. We decide the order of the flights and which groups will be on which flights. Custom manifest has to be taped onto the inside of the windscreen. One person to drive each vehicle onto the ship - the rest of the convoy to travel in buses there and back. Two teams to deal with the Harbour Master and Bill of Laden.

As I'm clearing away left over food containers after dinner I meet a young man who introduces himself - Shadi. He invites me to a family home nearby, they are a Palestinian refugee who now have lives and homes in Syria but yearn to visit or return to Palestine. I meet his uncle, aunt, mother and two nephews. His mother invites me to stay at their home.

Aldibaja family

They are so hospitable, friendly and curious - I am given tea, fruit and lots of questions and chat. Shadi calls his brother Fadi and shortly he arrives in a car and they take me back to the family apartment overlooking the bay. I meet their father and spend some time talking to them all until late at night. I'm absolutely knackered. Their father shows me a picture of the location where their family used to live in Palestine - now he says there is a fast-food restaurant there. Soon it becomes evident I'm falling asleep at the kitchen table and they give me the bathroom and a bed - the comfort is immense!

Fadi, Shadi and their dad

2nd January 2010

There's another meeting to communicate to people what we have to do next and the plan for getting the vehicles and us to El-Arish. Fadi and Shadi's mother is preparing lunch for later - stuffing a mix of lamb and rice into cored courgettes ready for baking or steaming.

We then have time to go off and do whatever we need until return. I go with Fadi and Shadi to Fadi's university in Lattakia. There is a pair of security guards on the gate of the Uni. One is a serious-faced small skinny dude who decides its not ok for me to enter the Uni - the other is a large-ish mad looking person who walks away from the gate with Shadi and I while Fadi goes in as he has lectures to attend. The mad bloke talks at us and seems to be describing himself as Russian (but speaks in Arabic) he walks us to a different entrance and in to the Uni campus. He continues to accompany us across the car park and half way across pulls an almost empty whisky bottle from his pocket and laughs. Aha he's not mad he's drunk! It takes some physical effort to escape him. Wandering around the lecture hall corridors is very similar to any other Uni.

Shadi and I get a bus back to his folks place where his mother has made some delicious stuffed courgettes and stuffed vine leaves. I am feeling extremely spoilt.

Then return to the camp to move the vehicles down to the ship. Massive send off.

I wander back by myself to Cafe Express on American Street, feeling bereft without the vehicle.

Mosque in Lattakia

3rd January

Another meeting to let us know that the ship left ok apart from having its journey extended by several hours as Israeli exclusion zone has become larger around the coast. We are still awaiting security clearance to land in Egypt so won't be flying today.

After the meeting I bump into Ian SOAS Student from Alpha Team, he's not sure where he is staying and immediately Shadi and Fadi insist he stays at their home as well. We agree to meet up later on. I wander through town with Shadi and he takes me to internet shop with quite a fast connection. Fadi is going to come back and meet me later on. and comes back with their friend Majdee. We locate Ian and all go together to Majdee's flat where his sister also lives. They provide a delicious spread of bread, dips, eggs, yoghurt, cheese.

We talk about family life - curiosity as to why I am not married and don't have any children. I say that I could have done but it has not happened like that, I am working full-time and if I did have a child now I could provide for it myself if needed. Majdee's cousin is there with her children. The girl is about 3 or 4 and the boy is a toddler. She explains that her daughter is always crying and she does not know why. I ask her about when she cries most and how often and about her routine. Mum wants me to stay so we can talk about child development. Fadi takes Ian away to stay at their flat and I stay at Majdee's place so we can carry on talking. Her husband works away often in Saudia Arabia, she says when they are there together her child is more settled. It is 10 or 11 pm now and I can hear the 4 year old starting to have some sort of hysterics next door and it appears the girl and boy have had a fight over a toy. We agree that both children must be unsettled and tired as they are staying over with friends and it is really late for their bedtime. As soon as the little girl is put to bed - silence! All I can recommend is basic routine and earlier bedtimes - you never know....

She shows me her wedding photos. Her husband's mother apparently approached her and asked her if she wanted to get married - she agreed that she did and handed over a photo of herself. Her future husband approved of her photo and the deal was arranged. The wedding photos show them both looking very happy. She also shows me more pics of her friends all leaping around in high heels, dresses and with their hair down. I am surprised, 'How come these girls are not covered up?' she tells me this party is just for the women, 'but the photos?' - the men are not allowed to see the photographs.

Majdee's sister Taghreed lives at the flat. She is studying English, she says she has considered coming to Europe to study English but it is a concern for her family to let her travel away by herself so this is not yet definitely in the pipeline. I explain how my family found it difficult when I went away as an 18 year old to Africa for six months but they did let me go and how lucky I was to have had this independence and freedom to travel.

Taghreed and me

Taghreed stays up studying way after I have gone to bed.

Days 22-26

2010-01-25T14:54:00.000-08:00

28th December 2009

Head to the compound for 9am as there is going to be a meeting about our next moves. I attend a meeting inside the building with the organisers and we have to decide whether or not to stay longer in Jordan while preparations are made or head back up the road. We all agree to move towards the port in Syria as we have been in Aqaba for a number of days now. It is going to cost the operation a significant amount more money to undertake this backtrack and logistical exercise. Farewell to Cedric who is going to head off towards Cairo today. The team is feeling this departure. I manage to get to the internet place and let our other convoy member Richard T who is in Cairo know about the move back to Syria and the difficulty he will have if he tries to join us in El Arish. I have heard from the meeting this morning that the Gaza Freedom March is having a terrible time in Cairo and participants are not allowed to travel to Gaza, riot police have been cracking heads after peaceful protests. I'm feeling pretty hungry now having abstained from eating - I'm not used to this! Even one day and I'm feeling weak. Its hot and the hunger strikers are sitting in the shade at the top of the compound. During the day the hosts have brought out these fantastic trays of rice and lamb with almond and cashew sauce poured over it - as the decision has been made that we have an agreement with Egypt to be able to take ourselves and our vehicles and our stuff through to Gaza but compromise on the Nuweiba entry the deal is done so strikers can eat now. So the announcement is made and there are to be coaches organised to get us up the hill later on. People go to check out of places they have been in and get their stuff (for those not packed already). Lots of milling about while a group of 500 people try to get moving out of the town. I have to collect the equivalent fare that people would have paid for their ferry from them so we can all contribute to the cost of the transport from Syria to El-Arish. After a few hours we are back up at the car park and the decision is to stay in the car park for the night and leave first think in the morning. I get a text message once I have already got into the cab to sleep which says we need to depart at 7am - too late to let everyone know. There's a masjid on the carpark where some people choose to stay but the cab is just right size for me and with no cab mates no need to stick the tent up.

29th December
It is a bright sunny day - near perfect weather, not hot but clear and still. Out of the cab, quick splash around the face and a cup of tea and its time to line up to leave the car park. The Belgian members in our team have a TV crew that has turned up from Belgium and they are being interviewed. This remote car park on a hillside is nowhere anyone wants to stay for too long. I ask Pieter from Belgian team if he can travel with me because I have no co-driver or companion, he agrees to join me after the next stop. So for the next leg I am driving by myself through beautiful desert. Alpha team manage to get along the road first of all just fine and up the long slopes onto the desert plains. Signs off for Petra but we aren’t going to get any sight seeing on this trip. There is one more stop in Jordan for food where we are directed to on the outskirts of Amman by people on the ground. We also need to pick up Matthias Malaysian leader who is waiting at a junction off the main road for us before Amman. After taking the group off the road once a little to early a car with some men appears and they seem to know where we need to be. Matthias gets collected and we move on to the stop.

It is pretty fascinating how all these hosts seem to appear out of nowhere and know where we are going. This stop is a stony piece of ground in an area that is not built up. A reception is held in some long green open tents, not formal they just guide us to tables, bring out food (more amazing soft lamb on the bone with almond rice) and cans of drink. We don’t stay for long, there are no speeches, a few men come around and give us small notebooks in little bags as a gift, there is a leaflet in the bag with some pictures of men’s faces and writing in Arabic and a logo which I believe is from Islamic Action Front the main opposition party in Jordan. I have looked into them a bit more and from wikipedia they are described as being "quite liberal compared to other Islamist parties. They recognize democracy, pluralism, tolerance of other religions, and women's rights as key to nation's development process and they do not support extreme revolutionary movements. They oppose Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, Fatah al Islam but sympathize with Hamas" see link for more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Action_Front

Before we move off one of the convoy members from another group needs help as the delay to the convoy means he has missed an appointment for community supervision which is meant to be today. We both call his office in UK and I speak to the supervising officer and explain I work for youth offending services and have been in the group with the member and explain the delay. They give him a new date for a month's time which makes him very happy and relieved. It is a relief for me when Pieter jumps in to take over the driving for a while. We move our of the outskirts of Amman and towards Syria through quite tricky traffic but Pieter does a good job and the police on motorbikes on the ground make sure we get to the main road.

I take the opportunity to use a laptop that Iqbal has lent me to burn some music off the hard drive. The Beat and Selecter on one cd, a mixture of country favourites on another and the Killers on another (special request from Pieter:)). So we get to sing along a bit. Unfortunately due to the fact that I am not concentrating but playing with the laptop and Pieter has not been a convoy lead vehicle driver before we manage to leave the group behind and I haven't noticed. We are on the main road and in the dusk and then dark and after about 20 minutes I check the mirrors and ask 'where are they?' the rest are also out of range of the CBs - oh dear. Luckily after a little while they come back into range and site and we move on together to the border.

Leaving Jordan and entering Syria is fairly straight forward. Just inside Syria is a mobile coffee stand on the side of the road where we wait for all the vehicles to come through. It is delicious from an expresso machine in the trailer and there are many of these throughout Syria.

A single police officer is going to lead us on, he says for 10km or so. It is starting to rain lightly and it is much cooler here. He leads off and travels very slowly at around 30km per hour. We pass 10km and still he is leading us - painfully slowly but when I try to speed up he doesn't want to and we have to continue at 30mph. It is pretty cold and he is riding exposed in the weather with no gloves and is being very careful with us to check all 14 vehicles in Alpha team are all behind so I can only feel grateful towards him for his care and attention despite the frustrating speed. He ends up taking us all the way to Damascus which is less than 100km away but is going to take a couple of hours. When we get to Damascus he doesn't know the way to Sahara Hotel which is where we stayed before and instead of going around the ring road we end up going through the city which is quite painful for the team in terms of trying to follow each other and the bumpiness of the final road up the hill to the hotel on the outskirts of town is hazardous - particularly to the caravan A3.

On arrival people are tired and not very happy - it has been a long day. People fend for themselves in order to get rooms from reception as we don't have a system arranged this time. Thanks to Juana I do get a bed which is more than some people manage. The hotel has arranged dinner for everyone which is amazing - fish and chips. I can understand people being a little unhappy but try to remind one or two that we are in fact all in the same boat and feel the same frustrations, if we all had a strop about it that would be pretty funny. We are all being put up and fed again at no cost to ourselves so cheer up!

People again are milling about the hotel reception area until the early hours, trying to use their laptops. I am really pleased to see Tarek who we originally met coming into Syria the first time. He is back to give us support and assistance where he can.

December 30th
9am meeting in the dining room. See notes to the left - behind the scenes much is going on in terms of trying to arrange our onward travel all together as a group. The agreement with the Egyptians has been that all ambulances and vehicles under 3.5 tons will be allowed through Rafah and all medical aid. We are going to be heading for a port soon, not exactly sure when.

I am happy to see Mahmoud Abu Ridah there at breakfast again as I had not really had the chance to speak to him when we came through Sahara Hotel before. He shows me his "passport" which is a British document that looks similar to a passport but does not in fact allow him to pass any ports - it is an ID document that simply allowed him to travel from UK to Syria but it won't work on any other borders. His wife and children are living in Jordan and he has not been able to see them for a long time ( I think he said eight months I can't recall exactly). He was arrested and held at Belmarsh without charge for between 2001 and 2005 before being released on a control order. I advise you to look at the link as the article explains his situation and makes it clear how powers under our laws allow such detentions. Neither he nor his lawyers have ever been informed of the information that his detention was based on. It is a coincidence that the two men in Jordan who asked me if I could help them to join the Jordanian group of the convoy but could not come with us due to the track back to Syria - are Mahmoud's brothers! So it is nice to be able to tell him I have seen them and spoken to them. Another example of how we with our British passports experience freedom of movement while Palestinian families are stopped from seeing each other by borders.

I need to try and track down the various scattered members of Alpha team because I have to collect the fares for travelling on from Syria. This comes in lots of different currencies and I am struggling to work out exactly what the exchange rates are.

People are also trying to get the wifi to work - to do this you seem to have to go into settings for the network on the laptop and change the numbers - like hacking. Anyway people are sharing the numbers and seem to be able to get on sporadically. I am also trying to ensure that the manifests in our team are up to date as we will need them for Egypt which will be very soon. Later in the day it appears that we will not be leaving this afternoon after all. I had already checked out so Juana and I get another room - or rather she does - such an organised and reliable girl. Later in the afternoon Tarek tells me that some supporters are bringing some aid up to the hotel and we need to try to accommodate it in the vehicles somehow. When I walk out I see what he means! An entire bus load of medical supplies and two more small pick up vans. Help. I call Abid and a couple of others who may have some space in their vehicles. I am intending to stay to help with the unloading and reloading but thankfully Iqbal insists that instead I should come with her into Damascus and go for a hammam - just for a couple of hours. I also grab Cuamhe to come too. It is fantastic. We are all steamed and scrubbed to within an inch of our lives. By the time I get back up the hill the aid has been reallocated in vehicles. Brilliant.

Day 18-21

2010-01-03T11:49:00.000-08:00

Day 18- Dec 24th
In the morning a minibus arrives around 9 and takes us back to the compound. Apparently the building was completely full of men last night and it was difficult to get a spot. We discover that there is going to be a problem with passing through Aqaba- Nuweiba. There will be negotiations and these could take some time. Some people are planning to get alternative accommodation in town and some have discovered a few resources locally like a cafe that has wifi which will be useful. There is quite a lot of confusion as to what will now happen. We are reminded that we are currently ahead of schedule. We are asked to send out info about our situation to friends and family. We are asked to try to locate the churches and mosques locally to tell them about what we are doing and what is happening. There is a Greek Orthodox church nearby that a few of us go to. Because of the disruption to the journey many people have questions and there are not really any answers apart from sit tight, remember that Jordan is a supportive country for us and think of ways we can commemorate the anniversary of the attacks on Gaza on 27th. Diplomatic efforts are going to take place with the Turkish organization IHH likely to take the lead. Our Malaysian leader Matthias decides to depart for Cairo in order to make efforts on behalf of Malaysia and Perdana Peace Organisation. We have the use of a large compound and yard not far from the centre of Aqaba. Many of the Turkish contingent have set up tents in the yard. There are large tables set up onto which food is brought at regular intervals during the day. The weather is sunny and warm. Some people are frustrated, not surprising as we are separated from our stuff, not able to travel through as planned and having to re-structure our time. There are no real answers and in addition to this when the group has been asked to turn up for a meeting not everyone turns up as they are beginning to be dotted about town and even when they do the main organizers are often engaged in meetings together within the building. George G is here and a lot of cameras from Turkey, Al Jazeera, local stations. Leah and I decide we need to get up to the vehicle somehow to get more than what we are standing in. Some bus transport has been arranged but we also get offered a lift by a local man. Half way up the hill to the car park his engine overheats and we jump out, the bus comes past and picks us up. At the vehicles I decide to try to get the van out. I drive it to the gate of the car park but there is a police officer there – he speaks sympathetically but after conversing with his superior the answer is no. I explain we need to get the aid to town to have photos taken of it – still no. It is unnerving that we don't seem able to move. Due to messing about with the vehicle Leah and I have missed the bus back to town but a film crew is still on their way out and have a press pass so we can jump in with them. A hotel owner in town has offered free accommodation to many members of the convoy. Other hotels are offering discounts. I join up with three others and we get a double room rate in a simple clean hotel nearby the yard so can get a shower and recharge batteries etc.

Day 19 – Christmas Day
Still no news apart from the conditions that Egypt have set out which is that Viva Palestina convoy must enter by El Arish port to Egypt, they want us to negotiate with Israeli authorities (why?? Israel do not occupy Gaza any more do they and we are not passing through Israeli territory either – a bit mystifying) also they want us to hand the aid over to UNRWA – United Nations Relief and Works Agency for working with Palestinian Refugees. George Galloway explains to the crowd and the media that we will not be doing the last two things that is for sure. Our aid is for Palestinian people as sovereign people in their own land not refugees and negotiating with Israel when we are not going through their territory is ludicrous notwithstanding their Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is wanted on an arrest warrant issued in UK for investigation into war crimes due to the attacks on Gaza under Operation Cast Lead – which is why we are all here.

Day 20 – 26th
Meeting times are arranged but don't happen on time. Regular food is being provided in the yard at the centre. Negotiations on behalf of the convoy are ongoing. People have come up with ideas for tomorrow including a candlelit vigil, press releases and contacts to MPs are being made. A member John Hurson calls for a hunger strike – many people volunteer. It is decided this should start at 11.25 on 27th to mark the anniversary with 15 people per day being added to until we get a response from Cairo.

Day 21 – 27th

Anniversary of the attacks on Gaza. The idea is for the convoy to walk slowly to the Egyptian consulate and for the hunger strikers to be photographed there. As it happens most of the UK convoy members start marching with the banners made yesterday towards the consulate at around 11:30am. The group manages to get around 500 yards along the road before it is stopped by police. It is not conflict situation however the group is stopped on the roundabout between the compound and the consulate. This means that quite a lot of those driving past do get to see the marchers. It is then that Kevin is asked to attend Aqaba governor's office to meet him. He asks three of us to join him as a delegation leaving the UK convoy on the road. The local café comes out and gives water to the marchers who are now waiting in the sun. We go in a car to the Governor's office. Kevin explains that Viva Palestina want to have a very small event in the town, perhaps in a square, to remember Gaza and to allow the people of Aqaba to meet the members. He and Caoimhe (an active campaigner and worker in solidarity with Palestine for many years) speak eloquently about how it is a small and peaceful event we require. Despite his polite and welcoming words the Governor is not to be moved. He says we have the compound and yard and people can come and see us there. There is to be no event or demonstration in town. Disappointing but he seems quite clear. We are not in an argument with Jordan and so will need to avoid conflict here. The news is disappointing to the members. Some decide to continue in a roundabout way to the consulate. We explain that there is little we can do but ask members to be imaginative. In this town it is very difficult to have open meetings and plans as the mahabarat (secret/ plain clothed police) are all over the place mixing with the crowd and will thwart any attempts at direct action as they just have done with the march. If we have to stay at the compound I decide we could try and get people to come to the evening event at 7pm there. I find a local printer and get some fliers made up in English and Arabic. Unfortunately I cannot find anyone to help me apart from a local man who drives me around to the tourist areas. I walk about handing out fliers and talking to people who show interest. Many locals are very supportive and most of the tourists I meet.
Back at the compound at 7 and the rally event is about to begin. It dawns on all of us here that the event is not what we expected. Militaristic music and imagery starts up and a video of guns, young people etc is on screen. This is not Viva Palestina stuff. I text all my members and speak to anyone around to encourage them to leave the event. I can see Kevin stating in very certain terms to one of the local organizers that there is no way that VP or George will be standing on this platform tonight with this imagery. So sudden change of plan and the convoy members troop down the road to be spoken to by George outside a café.

George explains to everyone what the agreement in principle is with El Arish being the port the Egyptian authorities want us to go to. He explains IHH have negotiated that the aid be channeled through IHH in Gaza not UNRWA and that we will not be negotiating with Israel. The dates for getting into Gaza however have now slipped and it is going to take some time to reach our destination. The ultimate decision of the Egyptian authorities has drawn the attention of the media to the convoy and the issues – if we had not come to this border we would not have demonstrated this standoff. One or two convoy members say they want to get vehicles down to the port and demonstrate there. George explains no – that our argument is not with Jordan, that the Jordanian authorities will stop at absolutely nothing to stop us if we go against wishes and that we all need to get on alive. Said from our team starts saying “what we plan to do is...” George stops him and says we should not be stating what we plan to do unless we want it to be stopped! We will need to drive back up to Syria, identify a port, arrange transport and get us all to El Arish. George explains that if anyone has to go home by first week of January then they should not come back with us. Cedric realises that he will not be coming any further now as he has to get back to Switerland by 1st Jan in order to take teenagers on a holiday camp. He is absolutely gutted and so am I – this is the first convoy member from our team to have to leave and he has been such a good support and companion. Later on I also realise that Leah has a leaving date very soon as well – she will need to leave from here too so that's both my dear cab mates. The group disperses slowly, Cedric is offered support by a few people in the form of commiserations, a phone number in Cairo of a person from Code Pink Gaza Freedom march and I say I will go with him to get his things from the vehicle and check about onward travel to Cairo. Back at the compound we bump into Saj and Muqtal who also want to go to the car park. An interested local has pulled over in his car – he is wearing scrubs and says he is a doctor from the local military hospital. He offers to take us up the hill. Frist of all we are quite pleased about this as he is driving a large comfortable car – however we set off in the wrong direction and after 20-30 mins or so it becomes clear he does not have a clue where we are going. We stop numerous times while he asks locals and this also proves fruitless. We end up heading back to square one and from here Muqtal can direct us. By the time we get the things back from the vehicle it has taken us two hours to travel 20 miles. It is almost 1am.

Days 13-18

2010-01-03T07:09:00.000-08:00

Two and a half hours sleep, another early start. Comfortable sleeping on the big crash mats in the gym spaces and we are provided with all meals by the local support. There is lots of bread, tea, eggs, cheese. There is a rally event in town. We have new team members in the A4 vehicle students Ian and Fiona, Muj is having some difficulty with his vehicle which is having trouble starting. They want help from a couple of lads who have been pretty handy with the engines of a number of vehicles. It turns out however that these lads are on some sort of probation and are not allowed to drive their vehicle. I have to speak to their team leader to get permission for them to come out and meet Muj. Their team leader Shak has only had them for a day or two as they were moved from the previous one. He says if I take responsibility for them then he's ok with that. They sort out Muj's vehicle and we all get on the road together. I explain to them that they can't drive their vehicle for the time being but I will discuss it later with Amer convoy vehicle lead. They are not happy about this but accept a driver form Muj's vehicle reluctantly. Tonight is our last night in Turkey at Gazantiep. We arrive at a large exhibition centre eventually after terrible directions on text message fail to indicate which exit off the motorway we should take. So a significant detour later we get into town, this time with 25 vehicles following us. Due to being late we are going to miss the reception at one location. Luckily when we get into town some police officers know where the other final destination is and we are guided by them to another sports hall. We are early which is a bonus. Vehicles are parked up on the ground behind the building which is gravelly and muddy. There is a laundry room at this location so ao couple of the lads get straight in. I have a couple of driving complaints to deal with so I approach he Belgians who are one of the complainers and also Richard T. The Belgians are not happy about the allegations. I decide we will have a whole team meeting at 8.30. I find a room at the centre which is a presentation room and has plenty of seats we pull into a circle I have also invited team leader Kieran and experienced convoyer Abid to sit in to assist. Hassan from Press TV wants to film the proceedings. So after thanking the Belgians for their long drive and Richard V and Jerome for sorting out their breakdown I raise the driving issue. The fact the Belgians have not been staying in line and cutting people up sparks an exchange. It is clear that A5 Kamal is angry about the driving and says it is dangerous. One of the Belgian drivers is defensive and there are almost insults thrown. Mrs Warsi gets snapped at when she asks who are the new Australian. An innocent comment as we have new students but not taken well by Kamal. Kieran talks through the reasons for staying in line and principles of convoy driving. I don't get a chance to introduce Fiona and Ian in the end. After the meeting I go up to the car park and speak to Kamal, Richard V, Jerome, Juana and Ram we are just standing in the car park almost planning to go somewhere but in the end just end up joking and talking in the dark by the vehicles. Richard gets out a nip of whisky. Back late to bed again.

Day 14 – Dec 19th
We are up at 7 to try to get to and through the border as soon as we can. After the timing of the arrival at Istanbul the convoy has learned that even early starts close to the border do not mean getting in at a good time. I have to drive the Slough vehicle as the boys Haroun and Rizwan are still banned for now. They have some decent tunes on cd so we get some D&B on nice for a change. The road to Syria as clear and its a straight run again after the police escort get us to the main road. The border is also very smooth in terms of processing us. The officials are very quick and helpful. The unhelpful bits are the faults of Viva Palestina. We have a friend of George's onboard now called Grant who I ask if we can move forward after Alpha group complete their paperwork quickly. He says he'd rather we waited. So duly we do. We are also waiting for what to do about the Malaysian-bought Turkish-registered vehicle. Apparently a Turkish driver has to drive the vehicle through the border because it is a Turkish van. We still don't have the registration forms which are required. Several phone calls and much waiting around later also including attempts to communicate with only around five words in common and we have worked out that our group should move across and leave the vehicle behind taking the UK drivers with us. Richard T has decided to wait with the vehicle however as the Turkish contingency is moving separately through after UK one we may lose our team members for a while. I decide to put them on the bus that has been put on for the U.S. members who joined in Istanbul. The arrangement takes a few phone calls and strategic conversations but eventually Alpha team can move on. We have moved to the end of the convoy due to the delays and patience is wearing a bit thin as a result. Nevertheless we get to set off into Syria with Damascus in our sights. The next few hours is almost surreal. Unexpected receptions for the convoy appear in our path and we find ourselves being greeted on the roadside by crowds of people in the semi-darkness – this time a marching band. Enthusiastic folks grab our hands warmly and firmly and wish us all their luck and love for the journey. It is quite overwhelming especially in conjunction with the long border corssing, convoy driving and lack of sleep in recent days. We move on from the roadside thinking Damascus next stop when again we are directed to a stop this time in a building with more formality and suit-dressed people. I sit next to a gynaecologist from Red Crescent charity – she tells me they have been waiting all day for us. We are given coffee and biscuits and speeches are made she tells me by local head of Red Crescent. There are Palestinian children there one of whom presents one of our convoy members with a plaque. There is much photo taking and hand shaking before we are ushered out again and back onto the road. It is dark and there are hills to be negotiated. Despite this we all have a good drive at a decent pace to Damascus,v some of the Cb communication is not working though so this will need to be looked at when we get a chance. Directions are accurate this time and we also have police escorts that appear at strategic moments to guide us. Arrival reveals that this time we are being put up in style. We are installed at a large resort style hotel. We park in front of the gates, stagger in with bags etc to a large dining room with three course meal provided then find our rooms. Juana and Kamal have arrived earlier due to having to get to an engagement and have kindly sorted out the beds for Leah, Cedric and I. Proper beds with ensuite bathroom – wow. George Galloway is here and members are getting snapped with him in the lobby.

DAY 14 – Dec 20th
Again we are supposed to be up for 8. I don't manage this but don't get there too late. While I am getting breakfast which is fresh tomatoes, olives, bread, yoghurt and very nice I bump into Mustapha. He introduces me to a man Mohamed Abu Redah who was in Belmarsh in UK for 8 years with no trial. He is a Palestinian who was only released on condition he went to Syria. He did not see his family for so many years and his case was worked with by Amnesty International. I am quite embarrassed that I don't recognise his name. After a short time however his face becomes one I do recognise from the newspaper and I would like to talk to him more but he's moved off and speaking to other people. Leah is knocked out by a migraine today and spends the day sleeping in bed trying to recover. I have lots of details to complete for paperwork that needs to be done for he Syrian-Jordanian border. We have to make sure that all the right people are in the right vehices and all the cargo manifests are up to date and that I have an accurate idea of who I have in my team. I will have a little time to do this at night. A team leaders's meeting has been called for 4pm with a group meeting at 5pm for the whole convoy. So a few hours to get into Damascus and get a look around. Cedric is very sensible and pushes off early. As I have info to chase I can't do this. Eventually I get away and Richard V, Jerome, Kamal and I make our way to town. The first step is to try to get a taxi – the reception tell us to go to the road. Once at the road outside the hotel gates it becomes clear that people just flag down drivers to get a lift. After ten to 15 minutes an open back mini-van stops. The boys jump in the back and I get the cab. The driver is a carpenter and we have to drop a piece of wood at a job first. Then taken into town. Dropped off at a grubby modern intersection we ask directions into the old town. Short walk later and we are into one corner of the large old town area of Damascus. Not having much time it is difficult to know where to start so we just walk about a bit randomly. Grab a coffee in an empty coffee house/ restaurant then continue. Through a bit of souk with many stalls selling perfume oil, spices, nuts, jewellery, bags, pot pourri, tat. We end up outside the Ummayah mosque one of the oldest mosques in the Muslim world built within 40 or 50 years of the beginning of Islam. I am abit distracted by knowing I need to be back up at the hotel for 4pm so shortly have to go and get a cab back. However on return I can see that I'm the only team leader to have the message or even to turn up. I grab some lunch from the dining room, chicken and rice. There are Palestinian refugees who live in Syria coming to the hotel to meet us this afternoon. There is going to be a press conference and George will be speaking. Already a few people are milling about in different areas of the hotel. It is quite difficult to see what is going on and who is who now. As we have the 70 vehicles added from Turkey, Syrian and Palestinian visitors, UK convoy members all milling about the scene is quite chaotic. Someone manages to get a sign up on the wall with an approximate timetable of what is happening where. However a number of convoyers have gone into town and not got back in good time so they will probably not be aware. I am approached by one of the Belgians in our group who is concerned. He has heard a rumour that a Hamas speaker is addressing the reception this evening. I am not aware of who this is or of the details of the reception so I am unable to confirm either way. I do say that there is bound to be some involvement from the administration in Gaza at some point on our journey. I say that if they are not happy then of course they should not attend. Said says he would like to know more about who it is that we are meeting on the way and who we are delivieirng the aid to. I say that we have an NGO (non-governmental organisation) acting as an umbrella organisation in Gaza to whom the aid is going for distribution. I meet a woman and her children in the lobby area of the hotel, she is Palestinian and she has good English. She explains that her family were refugees in 1948, her parents separated from their friends and family and she has not seen Palestine.
We finally get team leaders together with Nicci one of the organisers and get set up in an ante room where there is a power supply and she can plug in laptops and printer. Team leaders turn up gradually with their info to be updated. Its going to be a long night making sure the data is upto date. In Alpha team we have the Slough boys and new Malaysian vehicles to accommodate. Ram and Juana work hard to get the info in accurately, finally we have the registration documents for the new vehicles. Meanwhile there has been a reception in a hall at the gates of the hotel. I manage to get down there to have a look. As I walk towards the building I can see many people around it. Moving inside it has a metal detector arch set up for people to walk through but by the time I get there so many people are moving about the security don't seem to be bothering any more. The hall is set up full of rows of chairs with more people standing at the sides and back. There is loud music blaring interchanging with intense voices over the PA addressing the crowd. The atmosphere is quite intense. There are people giving out flags, caps and neck scarves. The meeting is a political rally. As I am not sure about what is being said by whom I am a bit bemused. Certainly the crowd are behave in a disciplined and responsive way. There are some children and hijab-wearing women in the room. Women sit towards the back. I've missed most of the event but there are several members in the room. Finishing the data seems more important.

Day 15- Dec 21st
We have asked team members to be at their vehicles by 7am. Some people are ready for this others do not seem to be. I am trying to ring the Slough vehicle, our deputy vehicle and the minibus of Muj's lads with no luck. The down time however we are able to sort out the CB issue on my vehicle with skilled intervention from Jerome A7, also we sticker the new vehicles and reorder everyone to reflect the new members. When everybody eventually turns up I have a quick meeting with everybody to thank those who are on time and express dissatisfaction with the late people. I also need to tell people to take the jihadi stickers off their vehicles that have appeared. Some of the scarves and baseball hats also have a logo on it which is representative of one of the armed brigades. Carrying this material is contrary to our values and therefore we need to remove it. Because we are not familiar with the organisations it is difficult to know exactly what logos mean what but we need to be on the safe side.

Eventually we get out of the hotel car park in formation with the team and are guided by police escort towards the route. Again it is not very far to the border with Jordan. The initial stage of the border is very easy. On the Syrian side a man approaches me to help – he says he is a Hamas volunteer and he seems to know everyone in the border office. He explains that his family is Palestinian but were refugees and he has never lived in Palestine. He facilitates Alpha group passports being processed. On the Jordanian side because we have sent the cargo manifests through in advance the office there has prepared the paperwork and we sail though customs section. The first passport section is more difficult as the officers collect everyone's passport in the whole convoy and they are all mixed up together. When we get them back they need to be sorted out from a large sack in the back of a pick up we are just awaiting the final gate when a problem arises. I get a call from one of the Malaysian vehicles ahead. He says he has not been given his passport back. I jump out to speak to Amer about this. All the Turkish vehicles have gone through and some of the UK ones. Some of the lads at the front are saying they don't want to give their passports and are slightly defensive. Amer gets on the phone to Kevin to check what the procedure should be now. Meanwhile we send a message down the line not to hand over passports now. Too ma y individuals are gathering at the top of the line giving their opinions. I get Amer and the other available team leaders and ask Amer what the answer from Kevin is. He explains that they have said it is fine to cooperate with the Jordanian border officials in this wa as we are not being asked to pay for visas or insurance for the entire group. I am satisfied it is going to be ok to do this now however many people in the group are unsure. Therefore we pull together a meeting for me to explain. Time is goign by and what was originally a quick passing has become very slow again and it is getting dark. Finally all drivers hand over their passports and we move on.

The directions into Amman appear to work this time however the drive is quite mental. The police appear to be trying to slow us down and there is some paranoia about this, expecially after the passport debacle. Calls on the cb are for us to bunch up together and stick together so the driving is a bit hairy. We arrive at a union headquarters in town where food and tea is available for us all. We are later than the first half of the convoy due to the delay at the border therefore have very little time before convoy organisers are calling for us to be arranged for onward transport. There are three different locations for members to stay at. Female convoyers are required to one minibus, it is absolutely packed with stuff and people. There is a limit on numbers and I have to get off to facilitate an older woman for whom mixed accommodation would not be suitable. I end up on a minibus with the US members, the students and the Belgians from our group. We are dropped at a youth hostel. The accommodation is basic but fine. I'm tired and crash out.

Day 16 – Dec 22nd
Morning breakfast is provided in a longish room lit up by the sun. Breakfast is flat bread, white cheese, boiled egg, youghurt jam, simple and tasty. There is wifi in the room so I can getonline for a little while. Cedric and other non-UK nationals have been told they need to check they have an affidavit to absolve their governments of any responsibility for them as they plan to enter a war zone. Cedric is annoyed about this as he was not informed sooner so if it prevents him from entering Gaza he will be very angry. He and others set off for their embassies in Amman centre. There are meetings or speeches back at the union but I need some time to myself and stay at the hostel until the afternoon when there is one other member who also wants to get to the union. He is Kuwaiti and said he has called his embassy and they are sending a car to give him a lift. Soon it arrives and we head to the centre – I wonder who he must be if he can just ring his embassy for a car. When I get to the centre It turns out the other groups who did not come to the youth hostel have been put in fairly expensive hotels in town. When I see Riz, Tom and Haroun from the rogue vehicle SL1 that joined our group Riz offers me his room, I go and get my stufff from the youth hostel. Cedric turns up and is not very happy because the embassy have told him he should have obtained an affidavit in Switzerland. Buses turn up to transport people back to hotels so we jump in the one to the Jerusalem hotel. Kamal, Cedric and I go out and hit a kebab shop locally where we eat humus, grilled meat, salad. Back at the hotel SL1 have been talking to a doctor who has some specialist medical equipment for a hospital in Gaza. He would like it to be put in one of the vehicles. We work out the Malaysian vehicles may be the best option. I need to call them to obtain keys and organise – it is about 11.30pm. The lads introduce me then head off with the doctor to look at the stuff. Later on I call them and they have managed to load up the equipment which is $250,000 worth of internal stethoscopy equipment. Fantastic. The doctor needs to ensure that he registers with the central committee for distributing the aid that we will be handing everything over to. Richard V, Kamal and I go to the well hidden hotel bar and have a beer.

Day 17 – Dec 23rd
We gather atthe vehicles in the morning in the car park outside the union again and order up to get going. Heading for Aqaba today. We have a team meeting where I ask everyone to prepare for the difficulties ahead. Egypt will be a challenge where we will need to be vigilant and stick together. I ask people not to leave vehicles unattended or with the keys in. We must remove all Hamas stickers that have appeared on the vans and get rid of Hamas caps and literature. The drive is quite painless and at stages beautiful especially when we head down onto a desert plain not far from Aqaba. On the way we are recieved at a roadside reception where we are given bread type snacks and water and given lots of encouragement, smiles and support. We are trailing a little way behind the other teams so we don't catch any speeches from George Galloway who has apparently been there before us. It is dark when we draw up to Aqaba. We expect to be boarding the ferry this evening at 1am. Instead we guided to a custom car park outside of town and asked to park then jump into small buses and get taken to another reception in town. IT is not what anyone wants to do as it is late and dark and some are not enjoying the regular rallies and speeches. There are flags and loud speeches at these events and as it is not in English it is hard to know what exactly is being said. We are taken whizzing down the hill in the dark to a building, compound and yard in town. There's a slight sense of foreboding at leaving the vehicles in a distant car park and being whisked away. It is hard to tell whether or not the building is a mosque or not but it is fairly large with three or four floors. Outside in the yard are a few hundred people seated in plastic chairs facing the outdoor stage. There is loud music, bright lights. The women are again seated at the back and I am guided in that direction as welll. The women rush to help us sit passing over plastic chairs. The event begins with loud speeches again I can't understand. There is lots of green - caps, flags with emblems and arabic script. I ask Juana if she has any idea where we are or whats going on. She said it is an opposition party political event. It turns out these guys are looking after us – after the rally we are all invited into the building and provided with a packet containing burger, chips and drink. It turns out that the convoy has been informed it will not be able to continue through the port of Nuweiba. After this they arrange for the women to be accommodated away from the centre and transport arrives. This is also unsettling as we have been split from the vehicles and now the men. We get taken to a building which has some 2 bed flats in it. Everyone tries to find a spot – there are sofas and the owner brings out lots of mattresses for us all. He also gives us three boxes of fresh dates – most girls are knackered so crash out. I am up late because there are still some more women coming in a car from the compound and they need to get sorted.

Day 10-13, 16th -18th December Turkey

2009-12-26T13:08:00.000-08:00

Day 10

8am meeting to move on to the border. Its not a long run to the border with Turkey. Its a drizzly day. At the border we first of all have to present our vehicle docs at the first pass, then have to obtain a visa for 15 euro which is a sticker in the passport, this then also has to be stamped in a separate booth. Next the vehicle manifest has to be brought to a further booth and this is associated with a passport and the document is then taken to another booth to be stamped. Then this is shown to the customs people and we are done. Just beyond the border gates we can see lots of flags waving and people and noise. As we pull out of the border there are cameras flashing, people shouting support and waving. We are given bags of fruit through the windows and cakes or bread. There are a lot of supporters from IHH a large international humanitarian relief organisation. Now we have to try to get to a reception in Istanbul.

The sun sets and we head towards the city gradually, our team seems to be progressing quite well although Richard's van still has no exhaust and the frame for keeping the caravan on the trailer desperately needs welding. We get to the outskirts of town and A5 and A7 Richard get separated from us and onto a different road. I am in contact with Kamahl on mobile anyway so this should not be a problem. As we draw along it appears that there are many many supporters for the convoy in Turkey. Along motorway junctions and in towns crowds of people are waiting for us cheering, shouting, waving Palestinian and IHH flags and when we stop are trying to give us things. The drive around and through the city is quite tough with attempts to keep the team and convoy together on the CB in the rush hour traffic certainly a challenge despite the convoy having guides, the police hold all other traffic at the lights and we travel over these junctions which makes life easier. We cross through toll gates with no charge and continue over the Bosphorous bridge. We first stop at a reception where dinner is provided for us is a hotel conference room. Table cloths, press, speeeches ensue. While popping to the loo I manage to drop my UK mobile and it disappears into the squat hole. Nitemare. I had heard from Corinna earlier on and really want to get in touch with her as she is in Istanbul. Anyway I have no choice but to stick my hand it to retrieve it and thankfully it is there. I give it a quick rinse and take it apart to dry it out. This is not our overnight stop so after the food, salad rice stew of some sort. We are spoken to by Kevin about the itnerary for tomorrow which is going to include press conference, drive through town and a demonstration in the evening. We head back to the vehicles and travel a short distance to the overnight which is a sports hall nearby. On further examination I find that somehow I have managed to lose the battery for the mobi. I can't worry about it now and need to sleep after a long day. We have separate room for female members to sleep in. The sports halls have showers which is excellent and suitable for a big group like us.

Day 11

Istanbul Feshane

In the morning need to take the vehicles to a location on European side of the Bosphorous for press reception. We are not coming back to the sports hall which is a bit of a suprise as we all thought we were getting a day in Istanbul. People are confused as to whether or not they can go and see some sights or not. The vehicles look spectacular on the bridge. Meanwhile I'm trying to get hold of Corinna, to do this I need to phone pals in London who have her number as I lost the battery last night from the phone that has hers in it. We all park up and spend some time in the car park while there are pictures and speeches made. I make a cup of tea and wait for Corinna as I have managed to text her my travel number. She is so organised she has printed off copies of our itinerary from the web so knows more about what we are due to than I do and has located where we are! Next thing we need to do is take part in a city tour. Because we have such large number of vehicles we are split into groups of two teams and given a guide. I cannot find A3 boys and this delays us setting off. I am quite stressed about this as I think Turkish people are due to be receiving us on the route. Also we have to leave Istanbul later on and I don't know where we will be congregating to do this. Eventually they turn up but we are late for our guide and when we set off on the drive in the traffic it is a bit chaotic due to the amount of traffic. We get onto the same wavelength as the other team we are with on CB so the lead vehicle can inform us of where we are going but despite this the vehicle in front of us manages to take a wrong turn and six vehicles are on the wrong route. Due to the late start, the getting lost and the fact I have found out the city tour is just a drive around and not meeting anyone I decide we can just ask one of our Turkish colleagues to guide us to the Blue Mosque which is where most people want to go anyway. We have a look in there, bump into some other convoy members and go for a coffee in a small cafe. Then head back to Feshane and park up as coaches are going to be taking us to Taksim Square where there is a demonstration this evening. It is cold and begins to drizzle. We get to the square and on disembarking the coach the reception is clamorous! I am surrounded by hijab wearing women who are asking questions about the convoy and about me. Also a white South African woman approaches me and takes down some notes about me and the convoy. I still need to get a mobile phone battery, Taksim Square us close to high street shops and Corinna and I manage to find one, yeay! And a map of Turkey which we may need for the next leg. I don't catch much of the demo although was in the crowd for the beginning and the end.

There is some confusion about the timings of transport back down to Feshane but eventually I manage to account for everyone in the team apart form Cedric. He is in the car park when we get there. We now have the Turkish vehicles from IHH with us. There have also been joiners from Istanbul, Richard T, Dejanka and Samia. There is also a contingent of Americans who are joining. They are hoping to drive vehicles that have been parked up in Egypt for six months following a failed attempt to drive them into Gaza previously. So the number of members is now growing. One of the Belgian vehicles has a problem with fuel injection which needs to be fixed before it gets worse - they can stay in Istanbul to do this together but will need to catch up with us the next day.

I have heard from Richard T and I know he would like to drive for a bit. I think he can do this tomorrow as it is late and we are going to be night driving with some difficult bits and he does not know the van. So we jump into the vehicles and set off towards a town on the route called Adapazari. I am driving, the distance is not far but we are leaving in some traffic and progress is slow. Also on the route the convoy in front of us takes a wrong turn and adds a further half hour to hour on to our timing. We get in at 5ish and park in a town square - then are bussed to a sports hall to sleep. Amazing warm reception yet again. Only two and a half hours to sleep before we have to get on the road as there are appointments to be kept tomorrow in Adana and Ankara.

Everytime we arrive somewhere we are being plied with food, a lot of breaded or pastry type items but also fruit, yoghurt, water.

Day 12

We grab breakfast which again is all laid on with bread, egg, tea. Bus back to the square in Konye outside the municipal bulidings and a press conference is held in front of all the vehicles. A local TV company wants to interview me so I despite the two hours sleep I somehow manage to explain that the van has specialised aid in it for taking to Gaza and how much support we have had in Turkey.

We get on the road to Ankara and Konya. Ram and Juana the Malaysian reps from Padana Peace Organisation are going on ahead to be part of a delegation at Ankara. We arrive at Ankara and I am completely blown away by an Ottoman marching band that is put on for us a reception in a large sports exhibition hall. There are balloons of Palestinian flag colours decorating. The trumpets and stomping continues with finale including indoor fireworks and exploding glitter. More food and tea pressed upon us then onwards to Konya for the night.

On the road out of Ankara Richard V's vehicle's headlights fail. They pull over and it appears their alternator has gone. As luck would have it they have an alternator but the tricky bit is going to be getting the old one out and the new one in as a bolt is worn out and can't be removed from the old one. I leave them in the hands of the deputy Muj as we have to get the rest of the team on for the night in Adana. When we get there the two Belgian vehicles have arrived. They had to drive for nine hours from Istanbul to catch up with us today.

The rest of the journey is quite painless apart from some difficulties with locating the next sports hall we are due to stay in. After some directions from a security guard and telephoning we get there. It is a large modern sports and exhibition centre and again has plenty of space for our group with men's and women's rooms separate. Richard V is still trying to get in with the van and cara. He has sent on Muj ahead as they have a Turkish guide. Unfortunately the Turkish guide also leaves him so when they get to town there is some difficulty in locating us. It is now very late and they resort to hiring a cab to follow. They say go to bed to me so I do but shortly after call wakes me up - still lost. Even cab does not seem to know the way so I am still waiting up at 3.30am. Eventually Hassan from Press TV and I are outside trying to guide them in - we spot them a few blocks away driving up and down. Its a new build area with lots of unfinished apartment blocks and space so it is comical seeing them in the distance on the wrong road stopping and starting.

Day 13
Two and a half hours sleep, another early start. Comfortable sleeping on the big crash mats in the gym spaces and we are provided with all meals by the local support. There is lots of bread, tea, eggs, cheese. There is a rally event in town. We have new team members in the A4 vehicle students Ian and Fiona, Muj is having some difficulty with his vehicle which is having trouble starting. Theywant help from a couple of lads who have been pretty handy with the engines of a number of vehicles. It turns out however that these lads are on some sort of probation and are not allowed to drive their vehicle. I have to speak to their team leader to get permission forthem to come out and meet Muj. Their team leader Shak has only had them for a day or two as they were moved from the previous one. He says if I take responsibility for them then he's ok with that. They sort out Muj's vehicle and we all get on the road together. I explain to them that they can't drive their vehicle for the time being but I will discuss it later with Amer convoy vehicle lead. They are not happy about this but accept a driver form Muj's vehicle reluctantly. Tonight is our last night in Turkey at Gazantiep. We arrive at a large exhibition centre eventually after terrible directions on text message fail to indicate which exit off the motorway we should take. So a significant detour later we get into town, this time with 25 vehicles following us. Due to being late we are going to miss the reception at one location. Luckily when we get into town some police officers know where the other final destination is and we are guided by them to another sports hall. We are early which is a bonus. Vehicles are parked up on the ground behind the building which is gravelly and muddy. There is a laundry room at this location so ao couple of the lads get straight in. I have a couple of driving complaints to deal with so I approach he Belgians who are one of the complainers and also Richard T. The Belgians are not happy about the allegations. I decide we will have a whole team meeting at 8.30. I find a room at the centre which is a presentation room and has plenty of seats we pull into a circle I have also invited team leader Kieran and experienced convoyer Abid to sit in to assist. Hassan from Press TV wants to film the proceedings. So after thanking the Belgians for their long drive and Richard V and Jerome for sorting out their breakdown I raise the driving issue. The fact the Belgians have not been staying in line and cutting people up sparks an exchange. It is clear that A5 Kamal is angry about the driving and says it is dangerous. One of the Belgian drivers is defensive and there are almost insults thrown. Mrs Warsi gets snapped at when she asks who are the new Australian. An innocent comment as we have new students but not taken well by Kamal. Kieran talks through the reasons for staying in line and principles of convoy driving. I don't get a chance to introduce Fiona and Ian in the end. After the meeting I go up to the car park and speak to Kamal, Richard V, Jerome, Juana and Ram we are just standing in the car park almost planning to go somewhere but in the end just end up joking and talking in the dark by the vehicles. Richard gets out a nip of whisky. Back late to bed again. One of the American contingent has cracked her leg.

Day 6-9, 11th to 14th December 09

2009-12-18T17:16:00.000-08:00

Ring through to the lads stranded at the services without a key and they have found the key! Amazing. It was under the drivers seat down through the seat, they were in the process of taking the vehicle apart when it appeared. Much joy. So they head in to Ancona and rest of Alpha team and the main convoy all make their way to port. We have been told the ferry is leaving at 4pm. Short team meeting to explain to everyone the ferry booking process and the fact that we have some time to spare. Prices are going to be 90 euro for the vehicle, 30 euro per person then extra for a four person cabin. In our group the Malaysian contingent are planning to get a cabin and Kamahl from Oz as well. So with two cabins in the team we think we can deal. The idea is the rest of us can crash out wherever and grab a shower if necessary from one of the cabins. So convoy goes to to book their tickets. It rapidly becomes clear that our ferry company does not have a 4pm sailing but in fact we are all on 1.30pm departure. Action stations.

Onboard those without cabins are directed to the 10^th floor of the ship. This is the deck area and the plastic benches are part exposed to the elements so this does not appear entirely suitable particularly for the grandparents couple in our team.

There are showers on the top deck though so I take the opportunity while everyone is running around the ship settling in to jump in. On wandering around I bump into Talat Group leader for Manchester – he says he would like me to try and get some sort of accommodation for him and a few others. Rumour has it that the captain can be consulted for negotiations on cabins. I wait my turn to speak to him and explain about Viva Palestina, the age of the couple and the students – they give us eight passes to the dormitories and two passes to reclining air seats for free. Sorted.

There is a team meeting for whole convoy on the top deck. Kevin thanks everyone for making it so far and explains that if all goes to plan then after Istanbul where we are to be supported by IHH international medical aid charity there could be upto 200 vehicles in convoy for Gaza.

At question time Saj and Muqtal say that they have some concerns over the organisation and communications as they are saying that if they had not rung their team leader they would not know that the ferry was leaving earlier. However the majority of people appear to want to say positive comments and thank convoy leaders and VP. A Muslim brother gives a motivational speech. Team leaders then get called to a team meeting – I haven't eaten yet and having ordered food before that cannot be taken into the lounge we are sitting in this is long. Anyway after this its a nice evening – couple of beers and chat.

Day 7

Ferry pulls into Igoumenitsa at 6am. We are then on a beautiful sweeping route to Thessaloniki through mountains, tunnels, valleys. Snow on the hills and fog make the journey quite steady but the road is fantastically easy, new and clear. I am able to copy and burn two discs worth of reggae from the hard drive onto cd so we have some different music.

We have one stop where we grab coffee and some people have breakfast.

We arrive in good time at the outskirts of the city receiving text message information from convoy leaders. We are with some vehicles from D team when the vehicle in front of us takes a wrong turn and we end up separated from convoy. However with nine vehicles we wait in a quiet road and call VP who send a Greek host to find us and guide us in by following his car. We manage this by putting Cedric on a wireless radio handset in the lead car. He directs us through a few traffic lights and eventually to the basket ball stadium which is where we are staying we have made it by 5pm. There are pre-pack sandwiches which no-one touches because they are ham and cheese, cups of tea or coffee are available and the end of a basket ball practice taking place. Cedric is concerned after chatting with the guide who said they had only heard from Viva Palestina a few days ago for assistance. I check with convoy leader Kevin about this and he says the support group in Thessaloniki did have short notice because the previous one let them down.

The ambulance in our team that had lost its keys is reporting some issues with losing power, Mohammed A2 is also reporting losing power. Minibus and caravan A7 exhaust has fallen off so driving through the tunnels sounds like a B52 is flying overhead. The stopping place is on top of a hill overlooking Thessaloniki and is quite exposed to the cold air. In the evening a local delegation including the local mayor and one or two others arrive and speak to us, it is hard to make out what they are saying as the words are translated and the translator is unfortunately quite quiet and does not have all the vocab to express what they are saying. After this food is brought in for us in the form of hard boiled eggs, bread, feta cheese, apples – enormous apples. After this I am wandering about bump into Richard V and ask if he would like to go for a wander down the hill.

Most of the younger convoy members take the opportunity to have a run about, play some ball games and do some exercise on the mats and with the weights. Muj and his team have made some tomato rice dinner and givec me some. I share it with Hassan who starts talking to me – he explains how important his Muslim beliefs are to him and I explain how I am not religious at all. The place is a short walk from a high street with a couple of taverna, shops and rumour has it an internet shop. There is a gaming shop, small independent retailers couple of bars. Richard V and I wander down with the students from our group an American lad and a French girl Ingrid who lives in Swansea. We go into a bar where a number of other convoyers are gathered. It is relaxed, low light dark wooden furniture and a number of Greek locals out on saturday evening, The bottles of beer are expensive at 4 euros each. One of the bar waiters tells us that there is a band playing tonight and this will cost 5 euros – we say we will probably not go for this and agree with each other to move on after this beer. The performance starts up and is quite amusing as the lead man looks a bit like Pete Doherty and is prancing and striding around. It seems to be mixture of drama and music as there is narration and singing and then the band – not songs as such. Also there are women in the audience who participate in interacting with the lead with additional lines or actions. Nevertheless some of us decide to move on this time with one of the Irish contingent from Cork. Walking back up we stick our heads into a taverna where we are seated in a cubby and order Amstel. The Irishman tells us about a Gaelic football initiative which will mean setting up a Gaelic football team in Gaza for young people. He has goal posts and materials and ground work has been done by one of his colleagues which will mean Gaza has an official Gaelic football team which is part of a global network. He explains how the game has a strong network and this will respond to the needs of any young person who takes part in the game. The taverna turns out to be run by a Russian man and he is friendly and gives us a pizza. The beer is much cheaper here than in the other place but we don't stay out for another one.

Back up the hill to crash in the warm sports hall after a hot shower, it is late and most people are crashed out over the basketball court in their sleeping bags as Iqbal describes them as caterpillars.

Day 8

We have a more structured day ahead and there is going to be a drive down to the sea front of the town with a police escort. We manage to get almost the whole convoy down through town in spectacular style with the lights flashing and sirens on.

Thessaloniki town has a long sea front and we snake along it and onto the promenade where there are then photo opportunities, some speaking by Kevin and some free time to spend before the evening to return as we wish to the basketball court.

Leah and I sit on a park bench and eat food we have been given by an Albanian supporter on the ferry – vegetable pancakes, olives, roast parsnips. Then need to find wifi – unfortunately the only available appears to be Starbucks on the sea front. We sit there for a while, Leah gets chatting to Nargis and Tariq who come in as well. I leave to get back up the hill, bump into Zuber another team leader on the way back to the van and follow him and Peter back to base – after getting significantly lost in a nearby suburb. There are a few ancient looking ruins in the town, lots of small high streets and the sea front is quite developed. Weather is cold.

After finding base Zuber and Peter suggest going to get some food. I have lots to do because convoy leaders need us to ensure that all the members in our teams have their indemnity forms signed and that vehicles are aware of the fact their customs manifest forms must be done.

Because we are stopped for another night and there is a high street nearby people are scattered about a bit. I'm worried because I can't find my UK mobile phone anywhere. We go to the Russian taverna where I check for the mobile – not there, we stay for food. First hurdle is ordering. The menu has no english script at all and the owner cannot speak a word. Zuber is vegetarian and we need to make sure he doesn't get any meat on his plate. I flag down a passerby and they ask someone else but it turns out Georghe not only doesn't speak English but he doesn't speak Greek either - in the end we have to resort to him phoning a friend who speaks English.

Despite the language barrier Georghe is very friendly and comes to join us for most of the evening talking all the time animatedly in Russian. He understands we are going to Gaza. We order Greek salad and sovlaki he recommends Georgian pasta dumplings to us. In addition to this Georghe also provides for us cheese pizza, mushroom pie, lamb stew and then the shots of Stolichnya come out. He carries on talking and laughing and plying Peter and I with vodka. I decide I need to check at the bar with the strange band. YES!! There it is, found on the floor and handed in – amazing. I offer to buy them a drink – unfortunately for me they choose tequila and insist I have one too. I bump into A4 Nidal on the way back up the hill and we return to the Russian taverna where merriment continues but not too late.

Day 9

Moving on towards the border with Turkey next stop a seaside town Alexandropoulis. The Belgian team want to catch us up later as they have a mechanical problem still. It is not a long drive to Alexandropoulis and the stopover is ideal - an off-season campsite.

It is cold. Ryan decides its time for a dip and runs into the sea like a mad person.

We have a team leader's meeting about 8pm in one of the organiser's vehicles. On the way out of Thessaloniki one of F team's vehicles has been crashed into from behind and is now a write-off. Other vehicles in their group managed to take the aid spread across their team but it will have to be moved now. I know we have some space in the ambulances so I ask A4, A5 and A6 to take the aid which is mainly wheelchairs and some boxes of medical supplies. This means that we have to prepare vehicle manifests for the customs. For now this can be written on some blank vehicle manifest forms, it is a bit of a job but eventually the aid is redistributed in Alpha team. Well done!

I am a bit annoyed about the two Belgian vehicles who have not let me know where they are and drove past Viva Palestina guides on the main road earlier, I don't know where they are. So I will try to have a word with them in the morning. Some people have lit fires to keep warm in the very bracing air but the campsite don't want us to have them so we have to go around and ask people to put them out which is a shame. It is disappointing to see that some people have used broken pallets and these are going to burn leaving the nails in the sand - not very social considering kids will be using the beach in the summer, I mention this to someone sitting there so hopefully they will do a bit of clearing up. Before crashing out in the tent I have a shower which is very hot water but freezing air. Then sit around a stove that Mustapha and Benkharmaz have got out and its a relaxed welcoming place with a few bods sitting around chatting. When the subject turns to the existence of God or not I decide its time for bed.

Day 2-5

2009-12-13T05:32:00.000-08:00

Day 2, 7th December 2009:

Teams spend the morning checking and sorting – Richard and Jerome check the SWR ratings on the three CB radios we have for A1, A3 and A10. If we don't check the SWR the sets can get burned out. People are wandering around introducing if they don't know each other, sharing bread or sweeties. We have two more vehicles added to our group these are the Belgian contingent – so now we are 10. Team Leaders meeting sketches out where we are headed to. Mujj and I hold a team meeting to describe route to our destination, thank everyone for helping last night and outline how we want our group in convoy to work. Next stop
is in Germany, we will be going through Luxembourg.

The day's driving is going well when we stop at a service station just inside Luxembourg. Just about to depart when I notice there are nuts missing from the rear wheel we changed last night. This is not good. There are three remaining out of five nuts. I decide to send convoy on with Muj as lead vehicle, Muaz, Abdullah, Mujahid as deputies. Before leaving Richard and Jerome tighten the nuts up. I ring Sid convoy tyre man for advice who is travelling behind convoy to provide support. Unfortunately it turns out Sid and his vehicle have taken a different route and won't be passing us. Group F have been stopped at the services and provide advice. The question is whether or not to drive the vehicle as it is to Luxembourg or whether or not a tow is required. Group F leave us with their deputy Abid and another member Mustapha to stay with us. We get a call from Peter Finch who is a contemporary of another convoy member due to join us in Istanbul – he lives in Luxembourg and offers assistance. Unfortunately he does not know any mechanics or garages. In the services a helpful worker gets out the yellow pages and we look for garage numbers. It appears that there are no small independent garages in Luxembourg whatsoever. We decide to take up the offer of a bed for the night and opportunity to search for a mechanic in the morning – this involves carefully following Peter back to his home. He tells us Luxembourg is a wealthy country with green policies. We stay up around his kitchen table and Leah talks at some length about why she thinks a two state solution in Palestine would not be workable – partly due to the separation of West Bank and Gaza and the fracturing of the West Bank as it is now.

Day 3 & Day 4, 8th and 9th December 2009

Web searches for local garages prove fruitless. Corporate service is what's available in Luxembourg.

Peter writes a message on the van for Gaza.

We head for Mercedes first thing and get directed to the commercial vehicles workshop. This is reassuring as there are many buses and trucks around the yard. We speak to a service manager and show him the van wheel. As we know this will involve removing the wheel and checking for damage. We have to wait for a slot therefore this is going to be a day of waiting around. Mercedes is comfortable with coffee vouchers, soft seats etc. When the work has been done it is gone 4.30pm, they have found the wheel is knackered, the brake pads were thin and some parts relating to the wheels and brakes need replacing – all in all the price is over 1000 euro. I speak to the manager and he gives us a discount on the labour and one of the parts so it comes down to under 1000. An expensive puncture. However I am loaded with around £25,000 aid so this is a fraction – plus the vehicle wheels are now in shape for a long journey and Gaza will get a van that will be reliable.

So we have to catch up with the convoy now and they are a day and a half ahead. Abid and I have looked at the route and it looks like it is going to be better for us to head south through Germany, past Basel into Switzerland, into Italy and then re-contact the main convoy there. So a major overnight and day drive ahead. Its raining and windy but we make good progress on the autobahn until just before Basel when we hit a 13 km tailback. So a few hours sitting chatting with Leah and Cedric. Leah has a 25 year old daughter who is an actor and singer. Leah sings herself and Cedric has a good voice so they sing some songs e.g. Bandiera Rossa. Both Leah and Cedric are much more knowledgeable then me about Israel Palestinian history so it is fascinating to listen to them and ask questions.

We get into Switzerland at 3ish am and continue driving until 4. We stop at a service station and agree to have a power nap for an hour or two before heading on to Luzern. Switzerland is expensive e.g. .50 cent to use the loos. Abid's vehicle is having a power problem and loses power sometimes. We need to get this checked out at VW.

6am we head down into Luzern to look for VW. We have breakfast of instant noodles in the car park. The workshop say it will take until 4pm to get the analysis of what the problem is – from what they can see it would not kill the engine to carry on. Abid decides we should make up the time instead of wait. So off we go. Beautiful scenery through Switzerland and Italy.

We stop inside Italy around 2pm for a sit down and lunch. Trying to find a place involves walking around for half an hour – which is good after a long drive.

Heading on we find out the convoy is at Modena at a service station. While chatting to Cedric about his Palestinian exchange project in Switzerland we manage to miss the turning but its no drama, just adds another half an hour onto the journey. Joyous welcome when we catch up with everyone at Modena Auto Grill!. This is a funny place where they force you to walk through babylon of piled up products before you can exit the building on a one way system. However there are showers which is welcome after 24 hours on the road.

Day 5, 10th December 2009

Not a long journey from Modena to Ancona. However another drama is upon us after the student ambulance has lost their keys. Richard V entertains the troops and passing small children by swallowing a long balloon.

We get Alpha Team parked up at Ancona – this site is a large patch of concrete with a couple of scrubby patches of grass and no facilities. Anyway the priority is trying to find out if there's anything we can do about the missing key. Mercedes has an office in Ancona – Cedric and I go there and speak to them. Seven days to get a replacement, 200 euros. Oh dear. Decide to decide in the morning whether or not to buy the key.

Muzzakir and his lads have stayed with Ryan, Nidal and Mesrob as per deputy duties. They have been through the bins twice, asked the service station staff three times. Muj is knackered as he was up late mediating between some folks last night. One of his boys is also unwell so I say come back, leave the students at Modena (only 30km away).

Back at the site there's a bonfire going, weather is cold and we need to borrow blankets to supplement the sleeping bag and thermals.

6th December

2009-12-13T04:38:00.000-08:00

Up at 8 to travel to south London to pick up Leah on the way to Clackett Lane services for the convoy meet up. No probs finding the place. Next few hours spent sorting out the numbering for the vehicles. Lost Ayeb to another vehicle as he is a driver and someone needs one, in his place comes Cedric from Switzerland. Now we have Leah, Cedric and me in my van. Lots of wandering about, last minute preps, meeting people, taking pics, swapping stickers and info. CB is in place and works.

Alpha Team Lead Vehicle
Muzzakir and his boys are in central London for press conference along with Richard V who has come from North Wales with a minibus and caravan. I have spoken to Richard before on the phone but not met yet. He has kindly agreed to accommodate two members from Istanbul. We move off to Folkestone for first water crossing. Its a beautiful evening and all the vehicles look spectacular in the evening sunlight – particularly the HGV from Bristol signed by people from Bristol.

Convoy at Folkestone

Painless 25 min journey under the channel. Sunday evening we are told our destination is a public ground in Brussels. The group pull out in Calais and it is tricky trying to find the initial route, we end up separated from some of A team and end up with three vehicles with us A2, A3, A4. In addition a four by four waves us over that is separated from its group. They are LPG and need to refuel. When we pull over they are Saj and Muqtar from Bradford – they are very friendly and give us a more detailed atlas of Europe than the one we have. Instructions are to head past Bruges and Gent into then take the Brussels ringroad and come off at junction 7b. Turns out there's no 7b but 7 and 7a. So we all miss the turning and end up almost in town. While attempting to rejoin the route back to camp our vehicle A1 has a blow out on the rear left tyre.

The other vehicles stop with us and assist in taking out some of the aid, we get the tyre changed and move on finally arriving 1.30am. The stopover is an exhibition ground, gravelly ground but nonetheless manage to get our two bed tent up and get heads down by 3am. At this stage we have A1 me, Leah, Cedric, A2 Mohammed, Iqbal, A3 Mujahid, Abdullah, Muazim, A4 Ryan, Nadal, Mesrob, A5 Kamahl, Hassan A6 Ram, Juana, Faith A7 Richard, Jerome, A8 Osman, Muzakkir, Mohammed, Subhani, Kefayet.

Unpacked aid to change tyre

Behind Bars this weekend get down there..

2009-12-02T17:48:00.001-08:00

Good news is the Behind Bars people's party is all set up and they are fundraising for Gaza on Saturday, hurrah!!

VAN TASTIC

2009-12-02T17:26:00.001-08:00

Been struggling with the combination of my brother's mac and new camcorder (Maplins I love you)... so here's a result...

{here will be a video when I've worked out how to do it}

Disappointed to find out that there is not going to be a Central London rally for send off this weekend. Instead we are gathering at service stations on Saturday and Sunday near or on M25. Shame as lots of people want to come down to support and they won't be able to get to a service station on the motorway.

Link to news...

2009-11-28T13:55:00.000-08:00

here are some other people from other areas who are coming on the convoy...

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/features/features/4738071.York_group_to_drive_ambulance_thousands_of_miles_to_Gaza/

excellent!

Plenty of developments

2009-11-28T12:44:00.000-08:00

This week I went to St Johns church Bethnal Green where Riaz runs his office from the crypt. He helped me to do printing and photocopying and lent me a laptop for chasing things up for VP convoy online. The Crypt at St Johns is pretty interesting - there are several organisations running from there including a chinese herbalist, ESOL and a second hand book dealer. Riaz introduced me to another person there called Sebastian who is involved with the building and church. I asked him if the VP group could congregate at the church on 5th December and he said that should be fine - it would be amazing if the convoy does leave from Victoria Park as it is very near and handy for the tube and high st. He said the church congregation would be very interested in the convoy and would want to support and contribute. Brilliant!

On Friday evening I was invited down to Resonance FM for Mining for Gold (thanks Johny Brown, www.bandofholyjoy.co.uk, www.resonancefm.com. I spoke a little bit about the convoy and a poet was there Nina Zivancevic and she spoke about a theatre company who had performed their play with Palestinian actors in Israel and Israeli actors in Palestine - I need to check who this was. She recommended mention of Edward Said's book Orientalism - he was a Palestinian rights advocate, writer and philosopher, see link about him http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Said. And then we all read her poems and played mashups of banging hardcore techno with Turkish folk, 80's pop, reggae and disco at the same time. Gold was mined.

Did I forget to mention I have the vehicle now? Yeay! Now to fill it up. I have picked up some educational books already from a teacher called Suzi. Need to get CB radio installed, a cab heater is required too as mine's not working too well.

Context

2009-11-22T12:42:00.000-08:00

There have now been 3 fundraising dinners at my house and these have raised almost £300 so far - amazing.

Some people have offered to carry on the fun and have small parties of their own which is great.

Discussions at the table have of course included facts and history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. You might be interested in the following link where there is a timeline, history, maps and statistics of Palestine, http://www.interpal.info/the-palestinians

Also please check this Channel Four News report from Feb 3rd 2009

Viva Feva

2009-11-20T15:28:00.000-08:00

The phone is hot! I think I'm going to need a back up handset. The laptop almost killed me this week when the power supply apparently stopped and the screen went dead with all info and half written emails awaiting. Twenty minutes later a different plug... revival, breathe.
The Viva team and Group 1 are amazing all focused on getting themselves and everyone onto the road and very supportive. I've learned how to use a googlegroup.

This afternoon I met up with a member of London Palestinian Rights Group www.lprg.org.uk he offered not only aid but space for collecting, space for meeting and financial support to individuals on convoy. Spent an hour speaking about the need to question, challenge and be curious -a place he attends is the Zionist Federation where he has met a diversity of people whom we need to speak with. For balance I'd like to link you to their website: http://www.zionist.org.uk/

He also distributes Palestinian products by Zaytoun. I was donated some of these products by La Bouche in Broadway Market for a fundraising dinner. I have just had another one raising £65! Wow thank you so much folks.

The Zaytoun couscous was really fantastic see happy smiling faces above, hand rolled and sun-dried by a Palestinian women's co-operative, www.zaytoun.org

I popped in on my new neighbours upstairs briefly and they seem lovely. A couple, he works for a charity called Muslim Hands www.muslimhands.org, anyway we plan to catch up in January.

Countdown to leaving - today was vehicle registration deadline. Things are shaping up.

Lobby News...

2009-11-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

ANNUAL LOBBY OF PARLIAMENT - NOVEMBER 2009

Every November, for the past several years, there has been a lobby of Parliament in support of Palestinian self-determination. Hundreds of voters arrange to meet their MPs and impress upon them the popular support for the rights of the Palestinians to their own free nation state. Over the years we have seen how this has greatly improved the willingness of MPs to sign Early Day Motions (EDMs); raise parliamentary questions; write to ministers or join bodies like the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group.

Please see the continuation of this campaign news on link: http://www.palestinecampaign.org/Index7b.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=3&l2_id=51&Content_ID=934

The Feeding of the Five

2009-11-18T16:48:00.000-08:00

Just had the first fundraising dinner and I have to say a big thank you to my flat mate Nick who kept on top of the proceedings. And of course much gratitude to my guests who participated fantastically. I almost forgot to record the occasion. Anyway the discussions were lively and there was lots of laughing. Grilled goats cheese with warm tomato vinaigrette, chanterelle mushroom risotto with pan fried pork escalope, rocket and parmesan salad, wine, apple crumble, creme fraiche, ice cream. So we raised £40 and the Gaza Gastronomy starts. So now the guests have to host their own meal and invite their guests to make donations. A letter is sent to the guests which they can use to show shop or stall holders in their streets and with the donations they prepare a meal for guests who then repeat the process. I have to thank my mother for the idea! It must be how Tories have been fundraising for years (insider secret!). Thanks to Kat for her knowledge and eloquence. Lou for her ability to advocate for the devil. Nick for being the master of ceremonies and Sam and Simon for the humour.

Meanwhile plans have been continuing to take shape for the convoy. Main issue seems to be vehicles and the fact that a lot of people still have not organised them yet. I am intending to buy very soon. Getting to know the group and seeing things taking shape as well as the anxieties and concerns is good and exhilarating. Keeping up with the day job as well remotely logging in to check essential messages keeping me on my toes. Its going to happen though.

Group Leader

2009-11-15T15:36:00.000-08:00

I've just found out I was selected to be a Group Leader on convoy - will be running a group of 12 vehicles. Lots of work to do now, great challenge.

Fantastic Food

2009-11-14T14:03:00.000-08:00

Check out the items donated by Broadway Market stalls and shops today for use in fundraising dinner parties happening very soon!!! WOW! www.broadwaymarket.co.uk

The following stalls donated food:

Organic Chicken: Longwood Farm, Tuddenham St Mary, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, IP28 6TB. tel: 01638 717120, longwoodorganics@hotmail.com

Lamb chunks: Tidimans, 57 Broadway Market

Smoked Mackerel: Channel Fish, Victoria Ballington, sellfishvicki@yahoo.co.uk

Mozzarella, Parma Ham and Miller Damsels Charcoal Wafers: Romeo Jones, www.romeojones.co.uk

Organic Rocket and Salad leaves: Organic Food Shop

Balsamic vinegar: The Olive Oil Co., www.danilomanco.co.uk

Palestinian Couscous, olive oil and almonds: La Bouche, www.labouche.co.uk

Santa Rosa Chenin Torrontes: MacBlack & Vine, www.macblackandvine.co.uk

fuZion Tempranillo Malbec: MacBlack & Vine, www.macblackandvine.co.uk

Brownies: Ion Patisserie handmade desserts, 0208 257 5019, ionpatisserie@yahoo.co.uk

Flour, butter, brown sugar, cream, bottle of red. UMUT MARKET, grocery shop at the end near London Fields

Bramley cooking apples: Chegworth Valley, www.chegworthvalley.com

Handmade Hot Apple Chutney: The Pickle Man, Chris Smith 00447973 687376, www.thepickleman.com

Large loaf of bread: the bread man near the canal end

Mushrooms: the mushroom stall near the Cat and Mutton

Tomatoes: the tomatoes stall near the Cat and Mutton

Salami and mozzarella: the French man with salami and mozzarella at the end near Cat and Mutton who has no business cards!

The rest of the stalls were being manned by someone who wasn't the boss so couldn't give me stuff.

Apart from a joint stall of cakes and hot grilled sausage sandwiches who said it was owned by Israelis and giving anything to me was too contentious:

"We don't want to give money to Hezbollah. Its a shame they (the Palestinians) won't share the land 50:50"

[Incidentally Hezbollah originates in Lebanon not Gaza/ Palestine.]

I explained that the aid is humanitarian and consists of medical supplies, stationery, toys and the crisis has been caused by a blockade on Gaza borders but I was told the borders aren't closed. News to me! Perhaps they should read: http://www.map-uk.org/regions/uk/news/view/-/id/485/

Great news

2009-11-14T02:40:00.000-08:00

Party people Behind Bars have offered to donate 50% of their takings on 5th December party to me for the convoy!! I will send info on that party out later.

thanks so much people who have already been extremely generous xx

Oh dear.. alternatively...

2009-11-13T12:44:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, I had this email today from NOCHEX who have suspended my account for collecting donations, please see the text below:

Dear Account Holder,

After a recent company review process, a commercial decision has been taken by Nochex not to allow certain accounts, who are undertaking certain activities, to remain operational.

We have recently reviewed your account, and we regret to inform you that your account has been included within the parameters we have set for closure. Unfortunately, this means we now have now taken the action to close your Nochex account with immediate effect. Regrettably, we are unable to elaborate further on the specific details as to why this decision has been taken.

I'm a bit suspicious about this how about you??

please donate via http://vivapalestina.org/donations.htm

Interesting Week

2009-11-12T16:23:00.001-08:00

(is this post too long? please let me know...)

This has been a fascinating week. I have just got back from the London wide meeting for those planning to go on the convoy. Sadly we could not get the projector to project. Typical, two laptops, a projector and a massive wall-hung TV and yet still a verbally delivered presentation. I'm not feeling so technical any more. I made some more contacts and was glad to hear about some useful potential vehicles someone has found (a man with 15 ex NHS ambulances!). Some views at the meeting were that Viva Palestina needed to get more info out quicker and some weren't clear on how donation/ vehicle-buying etc is to work. Personally I think they're doing a good job - people need to work to some degree autonomously and not expect directives on everything - they have produced a fair old amount of relevant info so far. The volunteers need to buck up and get their registration forms and documents in as requested before any complaints in my view.

On Tuesday evening I went to a book launch at Amnesty International (thanks 4 heads up Ez). 'Palestine in Pieces' was written by Kathy and Bill Christison and provides their accounts of places they have visited there in the occupied territories. One passage read from the book describes a village of settled Bedouin called Numan where 170 people live. It became part of Jerusalem in 1967 when Israel captured East Jerusalem and expanded the city limits. Most of its residents happen to have West Bank ID cards which did not particularly matter until 1993 when a system of closures was introduced restricting those without Jerusalem ID cards from entering Jerusalem. So the villagers are now technically illegally living in Jerusalem under Israeli occupation law and cannot physically move towards the North West. This might not have been completely difficult to live with because villagers used to be able to trade with their South East neighbours towards Bethlehem. However now there is the massive security Wall blocking their way. There is one exit and entry point to the village guarded by Israeli police at which there is a list of residents names. No-one else is allowed in. Five residents happen to have Jerusalem ID cards and these five are the only ones allowed to move a vehicle in or out. A weekly UN mobile medical clinic was barred. Any 50kg sacks e.g. of flour or feed, have to be decanted into smaller containers for inspection. Water and electricity supplies were cut off in the nineties. There is so much more to this story and that is one of many in the book. (No profit available from www.plutobooks.com)

The couple who wrote the book are quite elderly Americans and used to work for the CIA. They say that the Palestine-Israel issue in the States is just not yet in the conscious awareness of enough Americans and therefore not a priority politically. Perhaps this would be different if more Americans saw this website that I was forwarded this week: www.ifamericansknew.com, check it out for data, figures, links, history and interesting stuff like that. No really check it out!

This morning I felt a bit reflective because I spoke to a contact at Merlin (international medical charity) who advised me to speak to another organisation called Medical Aid for Palestinians. I spoke to them and we spoke about the difficulty of taking aid which might be inappropriate e.g. wrong language, out of date, not able to be used etc. Apparently she said George Galloway's vehicle that he took previously is still not usable. I start to think about him and posturing and really hope that what we plan to do is really useful. Viva Palestina have some contacts for proper medical aid though so I'm reassured. Also the MAP lady did say that crayons, exercise books etc would be very useful so we need to try and find some of those.

Fundraising Fandango!

2009-11-09T15:43:00.000-08:00

Hello! Well this is educational for me, setting up a Nochex account, starting a blog, trying to text 150 people (I'm going to need thumb surgery) I feel technical.

I can even copy this link in html into my page which enables people to pay money to me... oh no they can't my account was closed down in mysterious circumstances

But I am still collecting so please email me projectresearcher@gmail.com

So maybe you want to know a bit more about what the money is for. I'm raising cash to buy a vehicle and drive it to Gaza over land during December with a convoy of vehicles all taking aid and making some noise to the Gaza Strip. In December 08 - January 09 lots of people, more than 1400, were killed, loads more injured in Gaza, as well as some Israeli civilians. For more info see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_war

There have been crimes committed on both sides of the conflict. However the civilian Gaza population is under severe pressure due to the fact it is blockaded by land air and sea borders which are controlled by Israel. Gaza’s population of 1.5 million is currently facing hardships due to the Israeli blockade on Gaza’s few crossing points, destruction of Gaza’s only electric plant and Israel’s withholding of Palestinian tax revenues, coupled with international donor aid cuts after the swearing-in of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority in March 2006.

All this was before the conflict last year! See:
http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2006/07/05/human-rights-council-special-session-occupied-palestinian-territories-july-6-2006

Also of interest is recent report by Amnesty International about the water supplies in Gaza: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/report/israel-rations-palestinians-trickle-water-20091027

In Gaza there is a need for medical humanitarian aid such as medical equipment, maternity and post natal supplies, school and educational stationary - crayons, paper, exercise books. I'm trying to collect any of this stuff so if you know anyone who could donate please get in touch.