Free Gaza Movement

Its potential plan to link Turkey and Gaza by sea would harm Israel’s gas pipeline plans with Cyprus and Greece

Israel on Oct. 5 intercepted a boat carrying women activists seeking to break the country's decade-long blockade of the Gaza Strip, saying it was boarded without incident and taken ashore.

A coalition of activists said on Aug. 12 they would send a flotilla of ships to break Israel's siege of Gaza by the end of 2014, fours years after a similar campaign ended in a deadly raid by Israeli commandos.
      
"We plan to send the flotilla during 2014," the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which includes activists from at least 10 countries, said in Istanbul.        

A Turkish aid group said on Aug. 11 it would send ships again to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza, four years after Israeli commandos stormed its flotilla bound for the Palestinian territory and killed 10 people.
   

Turkey has assisted in the evacuation of 51 people from the Gaza Strip, including Turkish and foreign nationals, according to a statement released by the Foreign Ministry on July 22.

Amid the spiraling bloodshed in Gaza, Turkey continues to send aid to the Palestinian enclave through the Kerem Shalom border crossing in coordination with the Israeli army. Turkish agencies have been flowing aid into Gaza worth a total of $2.5 million and most of the assistance is based on local procurement, a Turkish official told the Hürriyet Daily News.