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Comments (0)Iran’s Red Crescent said it would send two aid ships to Gaza.
The organization announced Monday that it would send the ships by the end of the week, with one carrying humanitarian supplies and the other carrying Iranian relief workers, according to reports.
Iranian Red Crescent director Abdolraoof Adibzadeh told the Iranian English language Press TV that the aid would be transported into Gaza through the Rafah border with Egypt.
Egypt opened up its border crossing last week to allow people to cross freely in and out of Gaza, but thus far has not allowed any goods to pass into the strip controlled by the terrorist group Hamas.
The Red Crescent sent an aid ship loaded with food and medicine to Gaza in December 2008 that was intercepted by Israel’s Navy.
On Sunday, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards reportedly said it was willing to escort aid flotillas to Gaza.
Gillibrand Seeks Answers on Neglect of Jewish Cemeteries
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) asked the Obama administration to investigate reports of neglect and vandalism at Jewish cemeteries in Europe.
Gillibrand listed three examples, provided by Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg: Plans in Vilnius, Lithuania to expand a sports complex over a Jewish burial ground; reportedly unauthorized digging at a cemetery in Krakow, Poland; and ancient catacombs in Rabat, Malta left in disarray, with some remains removed.
“We must preserve these historic cemeteries and ensure they are neither neglected nor forgotten,” Gillibrand said in a statement announcing that she was writing a letter about the matter to Hillary Rodham Clinton, the U.S. secretary of state. “Moving or destroying these cemeteries would be an affront to family members of those buried there and would erase Jewish remnants from that time.”
Officials at the U.S. Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad, an independent government agency that deals with Jewish properties in Europe among other issues, said they were aware of the cases and were pursuing them.
Building at the Vilnius burial ground has been frozen for now after representations on behalf of the commission.
Israeli-Turkish Tensions Heating Up
As Israelis and Turks escalate their war of words, the government in Istanbul is reportedly considering reducing its relations with Jerusalem to a minimum.
“We may plan to reduce our relations with Israel to a minimum, but to assume everything involving another country is stopped in an instant, to say we have crossed you out of our address book, is not the custom of our state,” said Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc in an interview last Friday with NTV, according to a report in Haaretz. Turkey, he said, is “assessing deals with Israel.”
Nine Turkish nationals were killed in clashes with Israeli commandos who boarded their ship.
Turkey already has recalled its ambassador to Israel. And its president, Abdullah Gul, said June 2 that Israeli-Turkish ties “will never be as they were before.”
“Israel has made one of the biggest mistakes in its history,” he said, according to Haaretz.
A prosecutor in Ankara reportedly is gathering evidence for a potential case against Israeli officials.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Israelis demonstrated June 3 outside the Turkish Embassy in Tel Aviv.
The demonstrators held signs criticizing Turkey for not stopping the Gaza-bound flotilla of ships. Some demonstrators threw rocks at the building and attempted to hang an Israeli flag on the fence.
The Zionist Organization of America wants a probe of Turkey’s role in the flotilla incident.
“The ZOA calls for an investigation of Turkey, the country in which the organization assisting Islamist terrorists and responsible for the flotilla is based; from which the flotilla set sail; and whose government wrongly assured that the flotilla cargo had been duly inspected and found to consist purely of humanitarian supplies and included no weapons,” the ZOA said in a June 1 statement.