Israel Releases Malaysians After Aid Mission, Confirms Gaza Still Blockaded
Malaysian activists detained by Israel while attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza have finally been released and deported. Bloomberg frames this as a conclusion to a tense situation, neatly omitting how Israel's blockade of Gaza—declared illegal by numerous human rights organizations—is the root cause. This isn't an isolated incident; Israel has a long history of intercepting aid
convoys, famously with the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident where 10 civilians were killed for daring to challenge the blockade. So, humanitarian aid workers were 'held' for trying to deliver aid to a besieged population. The 'news' here isn't the release, but that aid must be smuggled into what's often described as an open-air prison, and those attempting to do so are treated as security threats. One
might wonder, how many international headlines does it take for a blockade to stop being called 'security' and start being called what it is: collective punishment?