 Hello, my name is Michael Bier, I'm here with Code Pink and others to express support for the Gaza people. We are desperately, desperately upset with U.S. policy which supports the blockade and siege of Gaza and the open-air prison of Gaza. And we are here today in solidarity with the international efforts of the Gaza Freedom Floatilla to bring medical supplies and humanitarian assistance to the people of Gaza and to break the siege and the blockade. We're very distressed that the Israeli forces attacked in the international waters two days ago. The Al-Adha return boat that was bringing medical supplies and they were very, quite violent and they kidnapped everybody and grabbed the boat and these people are, some of them are still in Israeli detention. And we are calling on the Israelis to stop immediately your policy of making Gaza an open-air prison and to make peace with the Palestinians and to stop this attacking of boats in international waters that are trying to get to Gaza to deliver medical supplies and medical aid. I work at Nonbounce International and we're the U.S. fiscal sponsor of this Freedom Floatilla and we have had a thousand people donate funds to try to help get medical supplies to the people of Gaza and we want the people of Gaza to know that there's enormous support for the Palestinian people and to end this blockade in this country. And we're calling on everybody to call up Congress, call up State Department, call up the U.N. and stop this blockade now and stop the attacks on our boats now. Thank you. So I'm Nadia Benjamin and I want to thank all of the people who helped to put together the Gaza Freedom Floatilla and it was a floatilla that went around the coast of Europe stopping in different ports along the way to have rallies and meetings and educate people about what's going on in Gaza so thousands and thousands of people learned about the problem along the way and now that the boats are being intercepted in international water we want to give a particular shout out to the one American who was on the boats. You know, a lot of people from this country wanted to go but there was only a place for one American and that's Joe Miedorz and Joe is somebody who knows about the Israeli brutality on international waters because he was in the U.S. Navy when the U.S. ship, the U.S. as Liberty was shot by the Israelis in 1967 and so many U.S. sellers died at that time and the people, the families, the victims and the people who survived have never been given a real explanation about what happened and so now this very brave man is back in international waters being subjected to Israeli abuse and we say to him, thank you Joe you honor us with your courage and with your sacrifice and for all of you who are in Gaza and all of you who are trying to get to Gaza we are with you, thank you I am Amal Herada and because of my origin Palestinian roots I strongly support the boats which have supporters to the Palestinians especially in Gaza because Gaza had been under siege for 12 years and there is a strong now blockade from all the services which is essential for life so Gaza has a serious problem now in electricity because they have the electricity for just 4 hours a day and sometimes for 2 hours a day so the children are suffering from hot weather so no cold water, no electricity for fans for air conditioners, for refrigerators the food goes bad in this weather and even the medicine, the hospitals all need electricity so there is sick people, all people, children they need that very important service for people's life imagine here if people they don't have electricity except for 4 hours or 2 hours a day what would happen to our life so there is not just political part of what's going on there is a human part of what's going on so I'm supporting strongly the people who are on the boats and I think what Israel is doing against them is a crime because when they stopped them and when they arrested them they were in the international water it doesn't belong even to the borders to what's called Israel but they don't want anybody to support they don't want any rights for people in Gaza they want them just to die and not only die biologically, no, they want them to die psychologically they will have no more hope that they will be free or that the refugees will return to their lands because many people who live in Gaza now are refugees and that's why they go to the borders of the occupied lands and they struggle there because they want to go back because they don't have life in Gaza and they lost everything and most of them are poor and without basic services in which a human being needs for life so I would like to say thank you, big thank you for those who always go on boats because this happens every year and I wish I could be on one of these boats in the future Thank you Free Palestine