Campaigner to challenge Gaza blockade

Aug 5 2008 By Neil McKay, The Journal

A NORTH EAST peace campaigner and former Taliban hostage is part of a daredevil mission to challenge Israeli gunboats.

Yvonne Ridley, from Stanley, County Durham, is part of the Free Gaza group, which plans to test the Israeli claim that the divided territory is free, by attempting to sail there from Cyprus.

Speaking from the Mediterranean island yesterday, former Journal reporter Ms Ridley, 50, said: "There are 50 of us in two motorboats on this peace mission to highlight the injustice of the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip.

"We are all aware that we are risking our lives by embarking on this voyage.

"The last time something like this was attempted was 20 years ago, when the Israeli gunboats blew out the ship’s motors."

Ms Ridley said her boat was due to sail "within the next day or two".

She said one of the group’s aims was to create a permanent maritime link between Cyprus and Gaza.

The activists have prepared publicity events if the Gaza trip is blocked by Israel, including the release of 5,000 balloons from the boats.

Ms Ridley said: "If the ship is prevented from reaching Gaza, we’ll stay for 10 days at sea ... then we’ll go back to Cyprus and try again."

She is making a film of the voyage with director Aki Nawaz.

The seaborne venture has been endorsed by politicians and humanitarians across the globe, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire.

The Jerusalem Post reported on Sunday that while the Israeli government was keeping silent about an imminent activists’ voyage, the navy would react if the vessel closed in on the Gaza shore, which is under a navy blockade.

Retired Israeli General Ya’acov Amidror said the decision concerning the ship would be a political one, not a military one and that the response would be diplomatic, rather than based on military policy.

Ms Ridley said her daughter Daisy, 15, supported what she was doing, but would rather accompany friends to Spain on holiday than join her mother at sea.

She said: "I haven’t told my mother Joyce, who lives in Stanley, what I am doing."

Ms Ridley is well known in the Muslim world for her outspoken views. She converted to Islam after making international headlines when she was captured by the Taliban on an undercover assignment in Afghanistan in 2001 and held hostage for 11 days.