For the second time in as many months, Free Gaza activists scheduled to leave Cyprus on Thursday.
By HERB KEINONGaza protest boats 224.88(photo credit: AP)
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak will, for the second time in as many months, need to decide whether or not to intercept a boat full of pro-Palestinian protesters sailing from Cyprus to Gaza.
Organizers of the boat said it was due to set sail from Cyprus on Thursday. The aim of these journeys is to protest the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Last month, Israel let two such boats into Gaza, after determining that the public relations damage from stopping the boats on the high seas would be greater than the dent to Israeli's sovereignty that would result from letting the boats in.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that no decision had yet been made, though a meeting on the hasbara aspects of this new phenomenon was held three weeks ago, after the first ship was allowed in.
Palmor said a decision was not expected until the ship approaches Israel's territorial waters.
Palmor said that the decision not to intercept the first two boats and to let them return to Cyprus did not necessarily represent a sweeping Israeli policy. At the time, Foreign Ministry officials said Israel would evaluate each such incident separately.
While the organizers said that the boat would bring medicine into Gaza, Palmor said that there was neither a shortage of humanitarian aid in Gaza nor a lack of ways to bring medicine and doctors in through the border crossings.
"They are simply looking for a confrontation, for the media and for their donors," Palmor said.
The organizers of the boat said about 20 protesters will be on board, including Balad MK Jamal Zahalka, 1976 Irish Nobel peace prize winner Mairead Maguire, who has been involved in the protests at Ni'ilin, Palestinian Legislative Council member Mustafa Barghouti and human rights lawyers and monitors, as well as five doctors.
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