Scottish Activist Films Israeli Navy Shooting at Gaza Fishermen
September 15th, 2008Via: Sunday Herald:
A SCOTTISH human rights activist has filmed the Israeli navy firing machine guns at unarmed Palestinian fishing boats in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of the Gaza Strip.
The footage, taken on September 6 by Andrew Muncie, who is from the Highlands, shows an Israeli gunboat engaging fishing boats while international observers hold their arms in the air and scream for them to stop firing.
No-one was injured in the incident, but Palestinian fishermen claim 14 colleagues have been murdered at sea by the Israeli navy since the onset of an economic blockade imposed after Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Israel says patrolling these waters is a vital security measure to stop weapons being smuggled into Gaza.
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Muncie, 34, of Dalbreagha, Spean Bridge, is working with the Free Gaza movement and arrived in Gaza last month as part of a group of 40 activists who sailed on two boats from Cyprus in an attempt to breach Israel’s blockade. He was accompanied by an 81-year-old nun, an 84-year-old holocaust survivor and Cherie Blair’s sister, Lauren Booth.
