A Swedish ship carrying anti-Israel activists set sail from Italy on Saturday, in the latest attempt by the Free Gaza movement to breach Israel’s blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A comprehensive United Nations investigative committee concluded in 2011 that Israel’s blockade is legal under international law and that Israel is justified in intercepting attempts to breach it even outside the Jewish state’s territorial waters. Israel further arranges for assistance convoys to enter Gaza via overland routes, after Israeli inspectors confirm that there are no weapons in the convoys, and the Gaza economy has been described as “booming” in sectors criss-crossing “construction… agriculture, the hotel and restaurant industry, transport and manufacturing.” An Associated Press report yesterday quoted organizer Dror Feiler to the effect that the vessel is scheduled to reach Gaza in mid-October. Feiler himself has been criticized for associating with eliminationist terrorist groups and the Free Gaza Movement is in crisis after its US head posted a video on Twitter that accused Zionists of running Nazi concentration camps.

[Photo: Hakan Akcura / Flickr]