Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:15:02 GMT
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Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney is still in Israeli custody.
Former US lawmaker Cynthia McKinney, who is in an Israeli jail for trying to take humanitarian aid to Gaza, says the White House has done nothing to secure her release.

Speaking to Press TV from inside the Israeli jail, she said US taxpayers paid for Israel's 22-day war on the Gaza Strip.

Operation Cast Lead was made possible by the US taxpayers' gift to the Israeli war machine in the form of F16s, helicopters gunship, white phosphorous, depleted uranium, cluster bombs and anything that kills," she told Press TV from inside the Israeli jail on Saturday.

McKinney has been in Israeli custody since Tuesday when she and 20 other humanitarian activists were arrested by the Israeli Navy while trying to take humanitarian aid to the besieged Gaza Strip.

She also criticized US President Barack Obama and his special envoy for their policies in the region, saying she was seeking to do what "neither President Obama nor his special envoy has done and that is to visit Gaza in the aftermath of Operation Cast Lead."

McKinney along with her group refused to sign a document admitting they violated Israel's blockade soon after they were taken to custody.

Family, friends and supporters say Cynthia McKinney believed she was in international waters and was free to pass.

"The Israelis hijacked us because we wanted to give crayons to the children of Gaza," McKinney said.

They are due to appear in an Israeli court on Sunday.

SB/MD

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=99800&sectionid=351020202

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And all of this controversy circles me
And it seems like the media immediately points a finger at me
So I point one back at 'em
But not the index or the pinky or the ring or the thumb
It's the one you put up when you don't give a ****
When you won't just put up with the bull**** they pull
Cause they full of **** too

PressTV is funded and operated by the totalitarian regime occupying Iran. Everything they say is a lie.

Gaza activists still in Israel jail





A number of foreign activists are still in detention in a Tel Aviv jail four days after the Israeli navy stopped their boat as they attempted to reach the Gaza Strip.

Mairead Maguire, a Nobel peace prize winner, told Al Jazeera on Saturday that the activists had agreed to remain in detention until Israel agreed to free all of the activists.

"We said that we were abducted as a group ... and that we would not leave until everyone left and we were happy that all our equipment had been returned," she said.

Israeli sailors boarded the Spirit of Humanity, a Greek-registered vessel, on Tuesday off the coast of Gaza and seized those on board.

"They forcibly boarded the ship, detained all our passengers and illegally took them to Israel against their will. This is a kidnapping. This is the act of piracy at sea," Ramzi Kyzia, an activist from the Free Gaza Movement, told a news conference in Cyprus.

"The Israeli navy made the choice to come out and intercept us and forcibly board us and kidnap 21 international human rights workers and journalists."

The activists, who were carrying humanitarian supplies, had set off from Cyprus in an attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, which prevents many basic supplies reaching the 1.5 million Palestinians in the territory.

Among those detained with Maguire were Cynthia McKinney, a US congresswoman, and two Al Jazeera journalists.

Yigal Palmor, the Israeli foreign minister, had said that those who signed an undertaking to return home voluntarily could be released immediately and repatriated on the first available flight.

Deportation orders

But Maguire told Al Jazeera that some of the activists were considering applying to extend their detention in order to mount a legal challenge against the actions of the Israeli authorities.

"We have been issued with deportation orders which have expired today," she said.

"We refuse to be criminalised because we wanted to go to the aid of the people of Gaza."

Israel imposed the crippling blockade of the Gaza Strip in 2007 after the Hamas movement seized full control of the territory after pushing out Fatah security forces loyal to Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president.

International calls for the siege to be eased have mounted since Israel fought a 22-day offensive in the territory in December and January, increasing the hardships faced by the Gazans.

Israel said that the war was aimed at ending rocket attacks by Palestinian fighters.