‘MY FLOTILLA DAUGHTER IS VERY BRAVE’

Published: 04 June 2010
by JOSH LOEB

THE mother of an Islington woman who was part of the Palestinian aid flotilla stormed by Israeli troops last night praised her daughter’s courage.

Alex Harrison, 32, from the Marquess Estate off Essex Road, was on one of the boats boarded by soldiers as they attempted to deliver goods to the war-torn Gaza Strip on Monday. At least nine people were killed during the incident.  

The former civil servant, who was based at the immigration courts on Rosebery Avenue, was taken off the vessel by Israeli commandoes and held in a prison for three days before being deported yesterday (Thursday). She is expected to arrive back at Heathrow at 10am today.

Alex’s mother Sandra Law said: “She’s very passionate and was determined to go even though she knew the risk. My husband spoke briefly to her. She was very upset about the people killed. She was also angry that the Israelis had confiscated everything leaving her with just the clothes she stood in. 

“She was hungry and covered in bruises from being manhandled by soldiers on the boat but says all that was minor compared to what happened to some of the others.”

It is the second time Ms Harrison has seen the inside of a jail after trying to deliver aid to Gaza – last year she was seized and held in a cockroach-infested cell in Israel for six days after joining a flotilla backed by American organisation the Free Gaza Movement. 

Mrs Law said: “My husband and myself are both extremely proud of Alex. She is very brave and prepared to stand up for her principles.

“She and her colleagues went through an awful lot last year but decided that they would go again. Few picked up the story last year up apart from the Islington Tribune.”

Gaza suffered heavy bombing from Israel in 2008 and has been under an Israeli blockade since the militant Islamist group Hamas took control there in 2007. 

Before leaving the UK early last month, Ms Harrison told the Tribune she would be taking humanitarian supplies to the territory.

“We will try to bring aid and humanitarian supplies that are on Israel’s banned list,” she said. “We are also bringing educational materials and materials to help the reconstruction.”

Ms Harrison said she had become involved in the Free Gaza Movement after reading about the killing of Tom Hurndall in 2003, a pro-Palestinian activist from Tufnell Park who was shot by an Israeli soldier while acting as a human shield in the Gaza Strip.

Speaking at a press conference held yesterday at the TUC headquarters off Tottenham Court Road, Sarah Colborne, a passenger on the Mavi Marmara, on which the nine activists died – described how she had seen a man who had been shot. She added: “He was in a very bad state and died subsequently.”

Ms Colborne, who is the director of the Holloway-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said she hoped the deaths would bring wider recognition of Israel’s “crimes” against the Palestinians.

She added: “I hope this will not be in vain and that this will act as a wake-up call to governments including our government. Israel has been used to acting with impunity and violating international law. That situation has to change now.” 

Islington North MP Jeremy Corbyn, who was also at the press conference, said he was “shocked and outraged” by Israel’s behaviour.

“I hope that the UK government has already protested in the strongest possible terms to Israel on this attack, in international waters, on vessels carrying aid to the people of Gaza,” he added.

“I visited Gaza earlier this year as part of a pan-European Parliamentary delegation and we saw for ourselves the continuing destruction from ‘Operation Cast Lead’, the shortages of medicines and vital supplies and the isolation and imprisonment of the people.”

Islington South and Finsbury MP Emily Thornberry said: “The eyes of the world have moved off Gaza and there have been the most terrible injustices there. There has to be proper international pressure on Israel. Alex Harrison has my full support.”

Baroness Meral Ece, a former councillor who is of Turkish descent, said the Turkish community in Islington were outraged by what had happened. She said: “The majority of the people killed were Turkish. It’s shocking what they’ve done.”

Throughout the week, pro-Palestinian campaigners from Islington Friends of Yibna took to the streets outside the Israeli Embassy in Kensington, unfurling a home-made banner with Alex Harrison’s name it.

The organisation’s chairwoman, Yael Kahn, said: “This massacre is the result of the appeasement policies towards Israel. The siege won’t be lifted unless the world stops its appeasement of this terrorist state.”

The Israeli Embassy in London said the activists on the Mavi Marmara had attacked Israeli soldiers with clubs and knives – something those onboard have denied.

A statement released to the press by the embassy said Israel regretted the loss of life.

• Islington Friends of Yibna will be holding a meeting on Monday (June 7) at 7.30pm at a location near to Highbury and Islington station, which may be attended by Alex Harrison. For details call 07880 731865.