Booth: Gaza a massive concentration camp

Blair's sister-in-law says Gaza crisis "on Darfur's scale;" seen shopping in territory just days before.

By JONNY PAUL, LONDON
Lauren Booth 224.88 (photo credit: AP)
Lauren Booth 224.88
(photo credit: AP)
The sister-in-law of former British prime minister Tony Blair has called Gaza a "concentration camp" and a "humanitarian crisis on the scale of Darfur." Journalist and activist Lauren Booth was being interviewed by left-wing anti-Israel activist George Galloway on Press TV, an Iranian English-language 24-hour news channel based in London, earlier this month. Galloway, who was thrown out of the Labor Party in 2003 for encouraging British troops to refuse orders while on duty in Iraq, was speaking to Booth in what he called "occupied Gaza." "Why are they keeping you cooped up in the concentration camp called Gaza?" he asked her. "I want to say thank you for using the word concentration camp because the word prison has been applied in the last few years and that's a lie. In a prison you get three meals a day, a nourishing diet, visits from outsiders and some hobbies and rehabilitation and a date for your release," she said. A few days before the interview, Agence France-Presse released a picture of Booth shopping in a grocery store in Gaza. Booth and other pro-Palestinian activists entered the Strip with the Free Gaza protest boats that came from Cyprus on August 23. Most of the protesters left on the same boats at the beginning of September; she and several others chose to remain in Gaza. Last month Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh presented her and 47 other international activists with Palestinian diplomatic passports. Booth has said that she is trapped in Gaza, that Egyptian and Israeli authorities have prevented her from leaving. Meanwhile, the Free Gaza movement says it is "broke" and is trying to raise funds for a return trip next Monday. "On September 22, we're going back to Gaza to expose the illegality of Israel's actions, support the suffering people of Gaza and create an open channel between Gaza and the outside world. "Our goal is to raise half-a-million dollars by the end of September. Please give what you can," the group said in an appeal for support.