Another Aid Ship Departs to Challenge Israel's Gaza Blockade

Reminiscent of the 2010 Freedom Flotilla, Scandinavian activists have launched an aid ship heading for Gaza in an attempt to challenge the Israel blockade. They hope this initiative will again bring international attention to the conflict and stop the Israeli navy’s barricade of Gaza.

The groups are small in number and guarantee to remain strictly non-violent. The SV Estelle, a vessel backed mainly by Swedish and Norwegian groups, will sail from Oslo today, and organizers hope several other ships will join it during its journey before it reaches waters off Gaza in October.

Israel says it blocks maritime approaches to the Gaza Strip to prevent arms smuggling to the Palestinians. In May 2010, several aid ships trying to approach Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip were stopped by Israeli naval commandos, who killed nine pro-Palestinian Turks aboard one of the vessels.

Photo (thumb): The SV Estelle, a tall ship built in 1922 [Credit: http://irishshiptogaza.org/]