NEWS: Guns won't keep Theresa away from Gaza

MARK McLAUGHLIN
Evening News (Edinburgh)
August 23, 2010, Monday

AN EDINBURGH activist who was seized at gunpoint by Israeli troops in a raid on an aid flotilla that left nine dead is preparing for another sea mission to Gaza.

Theresa McDermott, 43, a postal worker from Pilrig, told how an Israeli soldier held a gun to her head and threatened to shoot her when forces boarded her boat, which was delivering supplies to the blockaded Palestinian strip on May 31.

Her boat was sailing nearby when the Israel Defence Force opened fire on board the MV Mavi Marmara after apparently coming up against fierce resistance from activists.

Despite the risks, Ms McDermott is now preparing another flotilla with the Free Gaza movement in October.

She said: "People keep asking me why I keep going back and all I can say is I'm stubborn. The people of Gaza have to put up with this treatment every day of their lives, and when we head out there we get the chance to show it to the world.

"As long as we're drawing attention to the siege conditions they're living under then we'll keep going back."

The BBC's Panorama programme this week showed Israeli troops preparing for the arrival of the next flotilla, alongside footage taken on the Mavi Marmara apparently showing activists with chainsaws and metal bars.

The programme suggested that the IDF had been provoked by a hard core of radical activists from the Turkish IHH group.

Ms McDermott said that while she was sceptical about some of the footage she was looking to obtain her next boat from the UK, and sail it solely under the banner of the British Free Gaza movement.

She said: "It's hard to organise a major aid effort with just one country, so if other groups want to come along we're not in a position to stop them.

"I can't comment on all of the footage as I wasn't on the Mavi Marmara, but we all heard the radio broadcasts and at no point did anyone hear activists shouting 'go back to Auschwitz' as the Israelis claimed.

"And one thing I can say for certain is that the IDF were firing on us before they had even boarded the ships, so the claim that they only opened fire after they were provoked is rubbish."

The plight of Gaza has figured highly in this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival, with a talk by Free Gaza activists Sharyn Lock and Sarah Irving, whose book Beneath The Bombs details their experiences in the Israeli bombing raid in December 2008.

This week also saw the launch of Before We Say Goodbye, a teenage fiction book based on the lives of an 18-year-old female suicide bomber and her victim, and a talk by Israeli journalist Gideon Levy.