Activists send new boats to challenge blockade

[1]

Pro-Palestinian activists promised Tuesday to send two more boats to challenge Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip as international outrage mounted over a botched Israeli raid that left nine people dead.
Activists vowed on Tuesday to try to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza with another ship, and an Israeli officer pledged to halt it, setting the stage for a fresh confrontation after Monday’s deadly clash.
The MV Rachel Corrie, a converted merchant ship bought by pro-Palestinian activists and named after an American woman killed in the Gaza Strip in 2003, set off on Monday from Malta, organisers said. It was carrying 15 activists including a northern Irish Nobel Peace laureate.
“We are an initiative to break Israel’s blockade of 1.5 million people in Gaza. Our mission has not changed and this is not going to be the last flotilla,” Free Gaza Movement activist Greta Berlin, based in Cyprus, said.
An Israeli marine lieutenant, who was not identified, told Israel’s Army Radio his unit was prepared to block the ship.
“We as a unit are studying, and we will carry out professional investigations to reach conclusions,” the lieutenant said, referring to Monday’s confrontation in which his unit shot nine activists aboard a Turkish ferry. “And we will also be ready for the Rachel Corrie,” he added.
Army Radio reported that the ship would reach Gazan waters by Wednesday, but Berlin said it might not attempt to reach Gaza until early next week.
Also, Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday, letting Palestinians cross until further notice amid a storm of international criticism of Israel’s blockade of the enclave, officials in Egypt and Gaza said.
The move, urged by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against whom the embargo has been directed, prompted dozens of people to race to the crossing point in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah, though the gates appeared still to be closed.
It is the only point on Gaza’s borders that is not fully controlled by Israel. Cairo, coordinating with Israel, has opened it only sparingly since Hamas Islamists, who are allied to Egypt’s Opposition, seized control of Gaza three years ago. A permanent opening of the crossing, which lies above a stretch of desert frontier riddled by hundreds of smuggling tunnels, would be a major boost for Hamas and a blow to efforts by Israel and its Western allies to cripple the Islamists.
The interior ministry run by Hamas since it seized control of the Gaza Strip from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in June 2007 said in a statement: “Rafah crossing is open every day from 9 am to 7 pm.” Since Hamas took over, Egypt has opened the crossing only sporadically and with restrictions.
An Egyptian security source told Reuters: “Egypt opened its border with the Gaza Strip on Tuesday to allow humanitarian and medical aid to enter the Strip. On an international front, Russia and the European Union condemned Israel’s use of deadly force.

***
Airstrike kills 3 militants
Gaza Strip, June 1: An Islamic militant group in the Gaza Strip says three of its members have been killed in an Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza.
The Iranian-backed Isla-mic Jihad says the fighters were killed shortly after firing rockets into southern Israel. Israeli authorities say the rockets landed in open areas and caused no injuries. The Israeli military is confirming it carried out an airstrike Tuesday, and Gaza’s chief medical examiner also says there were three deaths. —AP