All of the money that the Gaza group requested has been raised – special thanks to the Arava Institute which matched the money you all sent to me! The initiative was started by a young woman in Gaza and ten of her friends – young women and men.
The initiative is scheduled to take place next Friday at 12:00 from east of Gaza city near the Israeli border. I will communicate with the Israeli army this week and hopefully they will not use the 150 doves as target practice. The Gazans are holding non-violent training all week – they have even been given permission to enter schools in Gaza and speak about non-violent struggle.
I have been in contact with Programm Director for Shatil and founder of the Movement for the Future of the Western Negev,,social activist Avi Dabush, from Kibbutz Bror Hail (near Gaza), and people from the Western Negev and a group of people from Kibbutz Beeri – Ram Haruvi and friends who will hopefully also organize some kind of action to send peaceful messages to the people of Gaza.
I have found someone who will be bringing the money to Gaza on Tuesday.
Unfortunately, I will be in Egypt next week for work and I won’t be able to come to the border to take part. The Gazans are working on getting media attention. I am sure it will be on Facebook live and YouTube. The main point of this action is for the Gazans to send their message to the people of Israel that they want peace. They don’t want to destroy Israel, they want freedom and they want to live in peace like normal human beings.
When this action is over and successful, the Gazan initiators would like to continue with more training and more actions. They are happy to communicate and cooperate with Israelis who are also seeking peace. We will work on a plan together with them after this first actions has been successfully implemented.
A big thanks to all who contributed. It is a small but very worthy beginning.