The following are exclusive photos taken on board the Estelle, as the ship was sailing toward the Gaza Strip in an attempt to break Israel's siege on the coastal territory. The Israeli navy took over the ship before it reached its destination, and arrested some twenty activists, among them three Israeli citizens. Huge efforts were made by the IDF Spokesperson's Office to curtail media coverage of the story. The ship was brought into the Ashdod Port after dark, more than ten hours after the Israeli forces took it over. Later that night, the Israeli citizens under arrest were brought to…

After being accused of promoting a video which places the blame for the Holocaust on the Zionists, Greta Berlin tells her side of the story.      I just finished about a 20-minute phone interview with Free Gaza Movement spokeswoman Greta Berlin, who spoke from Los Angeles. I exchanged some e-mails with her, I asked her several questions, I read quite a bit of the criticism and condemnations of her from left and right, and the bottom line is that I find her defense to be completely credible. She is not, to my mind, any kind of anti-Semite or wacko.…

The lethal attack on an Egyptian military outpost, in an attempted incursion into Israel, is another reminder of the terrorist infrastructure in the Sinai Peninsula. This infrastructure was built in part on the basis of the Gaza-Egypt-Israel smuggling industry, which is fueled by the massive restrictions on movement and trade imposed on the Strip by Israel and Egypt. On Sunday evening, terrorists attacked an Egyptian military outpost in the Sinai Peninsula, near the Rafah and Kerem Shalom border crossings, connecting Egypt with the Gaza Strip and Israel respectively. Fifteen Egyptian soldiers were killed in the attack, in which assailants seized…

European activists are organizing a new flotilla in solidarity with residents of Gaza. Their boat is expected to leave the Baltic Sea in the coming weeks and pass through several harbors in the Mediterranean for events aimed at raising awareness, before reaching the sealed off Strip. Previous flotillas were intercepted by the Israeli Navy, which is expected to stop this trip too. Activists posted a clip on YouTube on Wednesday showing the Estelle, a ship they recently bought for the journey to the blockaded Gaza Strip. The ship is currently on its way to Oslo after going through maintenance work…

Although Israelis spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Palestinians goods each year, these products are usually sold under Israelis labels, since Palestinian-marketed goods are a tough sell. Correction added on 7 March 2012. A video item on the Media Line today tells of a Tel Aviv trade fair designated to help open doors for Palestinian agricultural products such as olive oil, to break into the Israeli market - in their own name. It turns out that Israelis are happy to buy Palestinian goods, says reporter Arieh O'Sullivan (sales were reported at $300 million last year) as long as they're…

IDF statements about the siege of Gaza obscure much more than they reveal According to the "IDFSpokesperson" account on Twitter, "Gaza is under a maritime security blockade according to international law." The two-boat flotilla known as "Freedom Waves to Gaza," which the army stopped yesterday from reaching the coastal territory, is, according to the same Twitter feed a "provocatilla." Setting aside the issue of whether or not the blockade is legal--and I don't believe that is--here's what the IDF fails to mention when it starts issuing statements about the blockade: 1) In August of 2008 and October of the same…