ISTG PUBLIC MEETING: THE SIEGE OF GAZA – EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT, Liberty Hall, 7.00pm, Tuesday 12 April

IAWM – PRESS RELEASE 12 April 2011
PUBLIC MEETING: THE SIEGE OF GAZA – EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
LOCATION: Liberty Hall
TIME / DATE; 7.00pm, Tuesday 12 April
SPEAKERS:
Yousef Al-Helou, Palestinian Journalist living in Gaza
Richard Boyd Barrett, TD.
Aengus O Snodaigh, TD.
The Irish Ship to Gaza campaign has organised an important meeting in Liberty Hall tonight. The speakers will include Internationally Renowned Palestinian Journalist, Yousef Al-Helou, from Gaza who will give an eyewitness account of atrocities committed by Israel during its war on Gaza in the winter of 2009. Richard Boyd Barrett TD and Aengus O Snodaigh TD will also be speaking at the event.
Yousef Al-Helou will be giving a number of talks open to the public in Ireland this week.

IAWM – PRESS RELEASE 12 April 2011
PUBLIC MEETING: THE SIEGE OF GAZA – EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT
LOCATION: Liberty Hall
TIME / DATE; 7.00pm, Tuesday 12 April
SPEAKERS:
Yousef Al-Helou, Palestinian Journalist living in Gaza
Richard Boyd Barrett, TD.
Aengus O Snodaigh, TD.
The Irish Ship to Gaza campaign has organised an important meeting in Liberty Hall tonight. The speakers will include Internationally Renowned Palestinian Journalist, Yousef Al-Helou, from Gaza who will give an eyewitness account of atrocities committed by Israel during its war on Gaza in the winter of 2009. Richard Boyd Barrett TD and Aengus O Snodaigh TD will also be speaking at the event.
Yousef Al-Helou will be giving a number of talks open to the public in Ireland this week.
Al-Helou, a resident of Gaza who has produced hundreds of television reports and features for Presstv in Gaza, will be speaking in very personal terms about the human impact of Israel’s continuing siege of Gaza. One of Al-Helou’s cousins was killed during the three-week Israeli attack on Gaza which began on 27th December 2008, and more recently three other members of his extended family – a 7 years old child, a 15 year old child, and their grandfather – were killed in Israeli’s attacks while playing outside their home in Gaza city.
Among the subjects to be covered in Al-Helou’s Irish talks are the recent escalations of Israeli attacks on Gaza, daily life under the siege, the historical context, the impact of the on-going Arab revolutions, the prospects for a no-fly zone in Palestine, Palestinian responses to the second international Freedom Flotilla due to sail to Gaza in late May, and the pro-Israeli biases of the Western media – including their failure to report escalating Israeli violence in Gaza in recent weeks.
Al-Helou’s arrival in Ireland comes less than three weeks after the release of a new UN report http://www.ochaopt.org/documents/ocha_opt_special_easing_the_blockade_2011_03_english.pdf concluding that the Gaza blockade imposed by Israel in June 2007 has “locked in” 1.5 million people in what is one of the most densely populated areas on earth, triggering a “protracted dignity crisis” with grave humanitarian consequences.
Al-Helou’s speaking tour in Ireland includes public meetings in Dublin (Tuesday 12th April, Liberty Hall, 7-9 p.m.), Galway (Wednesday 13th April, National University of Ireland Galway, O’Flaherty Theatre, 7 p.m.), Limerick (Thursday 14thApril, Pier One Hotel, Sarsfield Street, 8 p.m.), and Cork (Saturday 16th April, Metropole Hotel, 3 p.m.).
ENDS
Contacts:
Dublin public meeting – Mags O’Brien, SIPTU/Irish Trade Union Friends of Palestine – 087 6594443 or 01 6729621
Galway public meeting – Joseph Loughnanne, Student Palestine Solidarity – 087 2729021
Limerick public meeting – Zoe Lawlor, Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign – 087 9504397
Cork public meeting – Fintan Lane, Irish Ship to Gaza – 087 1258325