After trying maritime routes, a group of activists from Türkiye now aims to travel by land to demonstrate their solidarity with Palestinians oppressed by Israel.
The “Palestine Convoy” will start its journey from France on July 26 and proceed to the first stopover, Bosnia-Herzegovina, before reaching Türkiye. The activists aim to enter Palestine via Jordan.
The Palestine Convoy Turkish Delegation held a news conference in Istanbul on Sunday to reveal details of the journey, in the spirit of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which sought both to bring aid to Gazans and demonstrate international solidarity with them in the face of Israel’s genocidal actions in the Palestinian enclave.
The delegation’s coordinator, Hüseyin Durmaz, said they would never stop in their efforts to reach Palestine and Gaza. Durmaz, a Global Sumud Flotilla activist, said the humanity has witnessed “a livestream massacre” in Gaza and this led to outrage among “people of conscience.”
“This outrage translated into unprecedented global action. Demonstrations grew into a global wave of resistance shaped by the elderly who prayed for the oppressed, scholars who worked night and day to tell the people about the oppression, civic society organizations rallying people and those doing their best to show solidarity,” he said.
Durmaz said Israel attempted to portray the situation in Gaza fine although it continued blocking aid to Gaza. “The occupation regime launched a war on perception on the social media, investing millions to make people forget what transpired in Gaza during this dirty war, to create a perception that nothing happened and to censor social media posts about Palestine. We reinforced our digital activism to keep memories of what happened in Gaza alive, to keep righteous cause of people of Palestine under the spotlight,” he said.
Davut Daşkıran, civic society relations coordinator of the delegation, told Anadolu Agency (AA) that this land route was not attempted before. “It will stop by Bosnia-Herzegovina first and we will hold an event there. Then, we will travel to Istanbul. From Istanbul, we will travel to Bursa, Ankara, Konya, Adana, Gaziantep, Şanlıurfa, Diyarbakır, Mardin and Şırnak. In each city, the events will be held and the convoy will be promoted to ensure more participation,” he said. Daşkıran said they would later travel to Iraq and from there, to Jordan, to enter Palestine. “This will be a new experience for us and we are excited. We expect a high turnout. We are still interviewing with people wanting to join us,” he stated.
“Each effort represents hope for Palestinians. Even if we fail to reach our last destination, we show the world that people should not remain silent. We show everyone that there are still people standing with the oppressed,” he said.
