Free Gaza Movement activist, Derek Graham, wife Jenny & UNRWA delegate, Susan Johnson speak

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | event notice Sunday August 16, 2009 11:48 by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

Imperial Hotel Eyre Square Galway 8 PM Thurs 20th Aug

Recently kidnapped along with 1976, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Mairead Maguire and 19 other human rights activists in Mediterranean international waters whilst attempting to break the brutal Israeli siege of Gaza and bring desperately needed humanitarian aid to the people, Derek Graham, Ships Coordinator of the Gaza Free Movement and his wife Jenny will be giving eye witness testimony on the Israeli manufactured hell that is Gaza http://freegaza.org/

Recently returned from Gaza as an UNWRA delegate (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), Pennsylvania woman, Susan Johnson, visiting Ireland will also be presenting harrowing eye witness testimony : My trip to Gaza was traumatic, I thought I was prepared for it, but wasn't. To describe the destruction properly I would need a new vocabulary. As one person told us, there aren't words for what they are going through. The effects of the siege are equally devastating. I hadn't realized how awful it is for Gaza ... The impact of my trip to Gaza is difficult to explain or describe. The situation there is beyond words. Gaza has left me traumatized, energized, exhausted and passionate ... When I found myself at home after the Gaza trip, I realized "myself" was gone and wouldn't be returning. It was beyond a life changing experience. I have a passion for the West Bank, Gaza and Palestinian Refugees I never thought possible.

A homeless Palestinian girl stands in an incinerated classroom at a UN school after it was deliberately shelled by Israeli invasion forces on January 17, 2009 in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip.