Gaza, June 01: This is her sixth expedition to hostile waters. Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the Free Gaza movement, finds herself in the eye of yet another storm. Her husband Adam Shapiro, a US-based human rights activist and documentary film-maker, spoke with Khaleej Times about his dramatic telephonic exchange with his wife and the traumatic wait that follows. Excerpts:
“I last spoke to my wife 13 hours ago and I am out of my mind with worry. She was on Challenger-I, pretty close the largest Turkish vessel, when the firing broke out.
“In fact, I was on the line to her when she told me they were under attack. It was around 3am when the initial shots rang out. She said that the assault was now under way and the choppers were dropping paratroopers onto the Turkish ship, while the gunboats were nosing closer to the rest of the fleet made up of the smaller boats.
“She was calm, but there also seemed to be some concern because the Israelis looked and acted far more hostile than on previous occasions. This was not just a normal raid.
“I kept her on the line as long as possible trying to get more detail. She said, ‘We are in international waters; they cannot do this.’ She then said she had to go because, being the leader, she had to get the rest of team prepared for the worst.”
Was she worried? Shapiro said she had been arrested before, so she wasn’t unduly concerned, but there was a difference in that the Israelis had never deployed choppers before and the gunboats did seem to be in position to ram the boats.
So far, the Free Gaza movement has always been against violence, so how come the Israelis claim there were guns on board?
Shapiro said, “There is no change in our policy. None at all. If there were any guns, they could be flares for alerting others in case of trouble over water during the night sail or the Captain’s weapon which is permitted by maritime law.”
–Agencies