Hamas salutes Rachel Corrie effort

Hamas signals its respect for the humanitarian attempt by 19 foreign nationals to break the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip on board an Irish-owned aid ship.

In a Sunday statement, the Palestinian resistance movement said it “warmly salutes the foreign activists on board the Rachel Corrie,” AFP reported.

Israeli forces seized control of the vessel on Saturday. The crewmembers were then abducted and taken away for questioning.

Hamas “condemns the Zionist aggression against the ship, which was boarded in international waters and forced to dock in the (Israeli) port of Ashdod,” added the group.

The capture came only five days after Israeli commandos violently attacked the international Freedom Flotilla relief mission, killing at least 20 people.

“We condemn the continuing policy of terrorism implemented by Israel against the Palestinian people and activists for peace and freedom,” the Hamas statement read.

Tel Aviv put Gaza under an all-out land, naval and aerial blockade in mid-June 2007, when Hamas took control of the coastal sliver after the movement won the Palestinian parliamentary elections the year before.