The Israeli military has prevented five tons of non-perishable goods from being delivered to occupied Gaza by Israeli human rights organizations, peace activist, and former military personnel. Around 1,000 activists reached the Erez crossing between Israel and Gaza on Saturday in a convoy of about 100 cars and 20 buses. The food has stopped at the border and is currently sitting in a warehouse on the southern border of the Gaza strip.

In the past 11 days, Israel has tightened its illegal policy of collective punishment on Gazan civilians by halting food supplies, medical equipment, and fuel. Adam Keller, of Gush Shalom, an Israel-Palestine peace bloc, said, “We are still in negotiations with the army and are trying to mobilise Knesset members. We have an appeal to the Supreme Court that is ready to be lodged. We hope it will not come to that, but will use it if necessary.” The halted goods also contain hand-written notes for their Gazan recipients.

Several of the speakers at the Erez crossing on Saturday praised Gazans on breaching the Rafah border last week, while condemning both Qassam rocket attacks from the strip on the Israeli border town of Sderot and Israeli military attacks on Gaza.

Eyad Sarraj, founder of the Gaza Community Mental Health programme, spoke from Gaza City by mobile phone and his voice was amplified on the Israeli side of the crossing.

“I am deeply honoured and proud to have the chance to talk to you,” he told the Israelis.

“Every drop of blood shed in Israel or in Palestine is a crime against humanity that has to be prevented.”

Just like Moskovitz, the peace veteran from Jerusalem, Sarraj later told Al Jazeera that demonstrators in Gaza were “pleasantly surprised that there is still a peace camp in Israel”.

But the slogans and demands of this camp are clearly drowned out by the opinions of a wider Israeli public.

“The people who are organising those convoys are considered to be fringe, eccentric and liberal in the negative, American meaning of the word,” says Akiva Eldar of the Israeli liberal newspaper, Haaretz.

Rather than report on the human rights abuses being committed by the Israeli government, much of the Israeli media focus has been on the unguided Qassam rocket attacks in Sderot. Due to this unbalanced reporting, the majority of Israelis support the siege of Gaza. Ephraim Yaar, an academic and co-author of Tel Aviv University’s Peace Index which monitors Israeli public opinion, says, “They [Israelis] don’t believe that the situation in Gaza is as bad as is described.” In fact, the Israeli media has suggested that international reports on the severity of the blockade have been manipulated and exaggerated by Hamas.

The action from Israel’s “radical left” on Saturday marked a day of worldwide protests (I documented the one in Southern California here). In Gaza, some 200 demonstrators were connected to Israeli demonstrators via speeches broadcast in both directions through mobile phones. Uri Avnery, of Gush Shalom, said in an earlier statement, “Our hearts and minds are with our Palestinian brothers who are at this moment demonstrating with us on the other side of the fence – Don’t lose faith that one day we will meet together in this place without fences, without walls, without firepower, without violence, the sons of two peoples living next to each other in peace, in friendship, in partnership.”

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