Israel gearing up for "mother of all flotillas"

Israel is preparing for what is being described by its army as the “mother of all flotillas,” which could include up to 20 different ships planning to set sail for the Gaza Strip in the coming months, Jerusalem Post reported on Tuesday. The English language newspaper said that the army is closely tracking the planned flotilla, preparing for wide-range of scenarios including the possibility that due the large number of ships, it will need to stop the flotilla far from regional shores. Anwar Gharbi, a member of the European campaign to end the siege on Gaza which is one of the founders of the freedom flotilla, said that hundreds of NGOs were backing the Freedom Flotilla 2. He told Quds Press that alliances were made in various European countries, which include tens of human rights groups, to support the fleet. “We hope to have a broad coalition from European countries, and also maybe the United States,” Dror Feiler, an Israeli-Swedish musician and artist who lives in Stockholm – and one of the organizers behind the flotilla – told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. “We would like it to be double the size of the last flotilla, with at least a dozen ships and more than thousand people.” Organizers of the fleet decided to delay its sail until the end of year in view of the expanding number of institutions and individuals wishing to participate in it. The Israeli navy (Zionist criminals and murders) violently intercepted the first Freedom Flotilla last May and murdered nine Turkish activists and wounded dozens others.