They arrived at Rafah, the border between Egypt and the Gaza Strip, in a pink convoy. Pink shirts, 2,000 pink gift baskets, trucks decorated in pink. Their mission: to bring a message of hope and to witness the horror of war.
Joanna Zilsel, a Sunshine Coast resident, Jew and peace activist, was one of a 60-person Code Pink delegation that managed to gain access to Gaza in March while medical envoys met daily rejection.
"We went on Inter-national Women's Day to make a statement to the world and a gesture of solidarity to the women of Palestine," Zilsel said.Code Pink, initiated and led by women, now includes men and started in 2002 to protest the Iraq war. Zilsel is on their email list, and when she heard about the trip being organized to Gaza, she knew she had to go.
Raised by activist parents who lived through the Holocaust, Zilsel said, "I was raised with a deeply ingrained ethic that one acts morally in the world."
She said she has been outraged by Israel's assault on the Palestinians in Gaza and wanted to see the devastation firsthand and to connect with the citizenry.
"There is a common perception that Hamas broke the ceasefire. Israel is documented to have broken it in November [before Hamas fired more rockets]," she said. "Hamas did its best to uphold its end of the bargain."
Little aid is getting in, due to a 20-month Israeli blockade. Zilsel said a medical team that had been languishing at Rafah for days was able to follow Code Pink through. A convoy from the U.K. followed days later with supplies and food aid.
"It's the largest open air jail in the world," she said.
Zilsel was overwhelmed by the destruction: homes, schools and hospitals levelled, orchards, water wells and playground equipment bulldozed into the ground. She witnessed an older man replanting orange saplings and camps where people were crammed into tents but had tried to create small vegetable gardens. Their resilience touched Zilsel.
"People I met in Gaza were incredibly civilized people - highly intelligent, yearning for education," she said. "They are a tremendously generous, kind, intelligent culture."
Zilsel said each delegate was given a translator and had freedom to move around. Delegates stayed in private homes and could talk to whomever they wished. Zilsel attended a women and children's cultural centre where she sat in a circle and listened as each woman in turn told of their losses in the previous months' war.
"I held their hands. One by one," Zilsel recalled and said everyone shed tears. She said one woman who lost two sons in the bombing in part because paramedics were refused access to the wounded, said to Zilsel, "No one has ever cried for me before. Please tell our story. We just want to live."
Zilsel said she felt obliged to tell the women gathered that she is Jewish and her family lost members during the Holocaust.
"I was so in grief and horrified to think that Israel is now exacting this state of horror on you," she said.
Once translated, she said the Muslim women spontaneously began to applaud and then emerged from their seats to gather Zilsel in a group embrace.
Zilsel's story is far too layered to adequately express in a news article. She is meeting with West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country MP John Weston and had support from Powell River-Sunshine Coast MLA Nicholas Simons before her departure. She plans to write about her experiences and encourages others to get informed.
"Do independent research. If you feel sympathy for Israel, which I do, speak the truth and criticize where it's needed. Israel will not survive if it carries on in this way. We need to stop treating whole populations in this horrible way because this is how you create terrorists," Zilsel said.
