Moate woman on flotilla to Gaza with President Connolly's sister

A Moate woman is among the Irish contingent on the Global Sumud Flotilla which is currently sailing to Gaza as part of an effort to secure humanitarian aid for the people of the region.

Louise McCormack from Moate is one of the Irish participants as is Sligo's Margaret Connolly, sister of President of Ireland Catherine Connolly.

Earlier today (Wednesday) Louise said the flotilla was currently "nearing the south of Crete where last year the flotilla was attacked by 13 drones before an Italian ship stepped up, due to public protest, and accompanied the flotilla to the red zone where they were intercepted, taken to prison and tortured.

"Despite that, there are twice the number of boats and people travelling again to break the siege," she said.

Speaking about the aims of the maritime protest action, Louise said: "The International Court of Justice ruled that EU countries must to everything that they can to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach Gaza. European countries are not doing this.

"This blockade that Israel have put is illegal, and when we go we are just 80 small boats and behind us are far bigger boats. What we want to do is break the blockade, allow humanitarian aid to start coming in by sea.

"It is completely illegal for Israel to think about intercepting our boats. The last time this happened they used maritime law and they said that it was a warzone and therefore they had the right to intercept.

"We are not warships. We're not at war. There are no warships here except Israel's. Israel are committing a genocide. It's not a war, they have no right to intercept our boats."

She described the flotilla as "a peaceful humanitarian legal mission," saying, "we have a legal and moral obligation to ensure that humanitarian aid can reach the people of Gaza".

"We are on a slippery slope," she added. "Genocide cannot become the new norm. It's not normal to flatten an entire country. It's not normal to kill tens of thousands of children.

"European Governments are doing nothing - they're very complicit in this - and therefore the onus becomes on people like you and me to step up and say that we don't accept this as something that's normal.

"So we are just hundreds of normal people from 60 countries travelling because it's not normal to us and we don't accept that it has to be like this," she said.

She added that TG4 was making a documentary on the flotilla.