Israel holding 70yo Norwegian grandma in solitary without communication

Demand action from Norwegian govt but remember the 10,000+ Palestinians held hostage and the 1.8m being starved in Gaza’s open-air concentration camp

Vigdis Bjorvand is a 70-year-old grandmother and activist who was among the twenty-one volunteer crewmembers abducted on board the Freedom Flotilla ship ‘Handala’ last week. She and her fellow volunteers are on a hunger strike against Israel’s illegal attack and seizure of the ship and its crew and against the illegal blockade and famine that Israel is imposing against the Palestinian people of Gaza.

Palestinian human rights law firm Adalah reports that Bjorvand is being held in solitary confinement without any access to communication despite her advanced age. The Flotilla coalition has demanded that the Norwegian Government and the Foreign Ministry take immediate action to free her and ensure her safe return home.

However – and there’s no doubt that Bjorvand, her crewmates and the Flotilla organisers would agree – the plight of the more than ten thousand innocent Palestinians held hostage, and routinely subjected to hideous torture and sexual torture, is far worse. Every government should be demanding their immediate release and the opening of the mass starvation and slaughter camp that Israel has made of Gaza. More than 434,000 civilians have been murdered so far, with many more maimed and all the rest entering levels of malnutrition from which many would never fully recover – and in many cases, recover at all – even if the starvation blockade ended today.

Enough food is being blocked at the Gaza border to feed all of them for at least three months, but as well as food governments should be demanding – and militarily imposing if Israel continues to refuse – full access for medical and dietary specialists to transition the Palestinian people out of starvation with the minimum possible further loss of life and harmful long-term effects, and for international journalists to cover the whole process and document the full extent of Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Any government not doing this is abdicating its obligations under international law and colluding in Israel’s genocide.

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