JERUSALEM (JTA) — A pro-Gaza organization says it has received funding for three new ships that will attempt to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the coastal strip.
The European Campaign to End Siege on Gaza announced on its website Wednesday that it will name the new flotilla Fleet of Freedom 2.
Dr. Arafat Madi, president of the campaign, said in a statement on the website that he has received calls from around the world requesting the launching of a new flotilla with more ships, and carrying more aid and activists than the one that Israel intercepted Monday morning, which resulted in the deaths of nine activists.
Madi added that the new flotilla would leave for Gaza "in the coming weeks."
Meanwhile, another ship from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, named the Rachel Corrie in memory of an American activist who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, left Monday from a port in Malta toward Gaza carrying 15 activists. The ship likely will reach international waters off the coast of Gaza on Friday night or Saturday morning, Haaretz reported.
