The following 24-hour chronology was compiled by David Heap, from London, Ontario, one of the delegates on board the Canadian Boat to Gaza, The Tahrir, which set sail from Turkey at the beginning of November with the aim of penetrating the longstanding Israeli blockade around Gaza.
Friday, Nov. 4, at approximately 8:00 a.m.
The Tahrir and the Saoirse enter Israel's unilaterally declared 100 nautical mile military exclusion zone. We are in fact in international waters up until and after we are boarded.
12:30 p.m.
First spotted large military vessels (frigates?), one to port two to starboard.
12:30 p.m. to 13:00 p.m.
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LONDON, ONTARIO -- "Caterpillar equipment is used to destroy homes in Palestine. Kind of like what Caterpillar is trying to do to our homes here in London," a locked-out worker commented outside the Electro-Motive Diesel (EMD) plant last week on their picket line.
Home losses are a likely outcome of the aggressive concessions the locked-out workers' employer (owned by Caterpillar since 2010) is demanding. Wage cuts of more than 50 per cent plus loss of benefits would mean families not being able to make mortgage or rent payments. I spoke to one welder, a father of five, whose spouse also worked at EMD. With both breadwinners hit by drastic compensation cuts or job loss, what sort of future would a family like theirs face?