Thursday, September 18, 2014

GAZANS FLEEING TO EUROPE VIA TUNNELS, TRAFFICKERS AND BOATS

'It’s better to die at sea than to die of despair and frustration in Gaza,’ says resident of Strip.
Haaretz reports this morning that “Thousands of Palestinians have left the Gaza Strip for Europe using tunnels, traffickers and boats.”The following is a devastating glimpse into the continuous ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Europe is silent about it, the Western media is also silent about it.  I guess that discussing this unfolding tragedy   in the open would lead to a diplomatic clash with  Israel and an open conflict with its Jewish lobby. 
“The Palestinian Embassy in Greece reported yesterday that the ship that sank off the coast of Malta was carrying more than 450 passengers, most of them Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, and that it was rammed intentionally by another ship run by rival smugglers. “
“The Gaza-based human rights group Adamir has collected the names of more than 400 missing people. “No one knows where they are; the whole Gaza Strip is talking about it. It’s such a painful story, as if it’s not enough what happened in the last war and now another blow comes,” said Adamir director Halil Abu Shamala, noting that most of the passengers were young people but that there were also whole families aboard. “
“One prominent smuggler leader named Abu Hamada Asuri oversees a network that brings people out of the Gaza Strip to Europe by sea. He lives in Egypt but has representatives in the Strip, some of whom are well-known figures there. “
“One, who asked that his name not be used, told Haaretz: “This trip costs between $3500 to $4000 dollars a person. People who want to go make arrangements ahead of time to come to the entrance to a tunnel in Palestinian Rafah. It’s a relatively small tunnel; most of the big ones have been blocked by the Egyptians. People crawl dozens of meters and at the end of the tunnel on the Egyptian side of Rafah a minibus or other vehicle waits for them and takes them to Port Said.”

No comments:

Post a Comment