The lurid threats surrounding Mavi Marmara 2

Campaigners for an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza agreed last weekend to launch Freedom Flotilla 2 in the third week of June, with ships departing from various European ports.

The first flotilla was assaulted last May by Israeli special forces who killed nine Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara.

However, the international solidarity movement remains determined to persist in its peaceful direct action to highlight Israel's illegal and inhuman collective punishment of the Palestinian people.

Committee members followed up their meeting by travelling to Strasbourg for meetings with European Parliament members, urging support for the flotilla and for international law.

Pro-Palestinian groups are contacting members of national parliaments and international bodies "to gain support for this global civil society action to end Israel's criminal blockade of Gaza."

Scottish campaigners will have drawn encouragement on this issue from the return of Alex Salmond as first minister earlier this month.

Salmond cut through British government and official opposition complicity last May, denouncing Israel's actions as "atrocity on the high seas."

He backed the call for sanctions, insisting: "You can't have normal relationships if you believe another country has been involved in what Israel has been involved in."

On the other hand, dozens of US Congress members, led by Representative Steve Israel, wrote to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, urging him to prevent the departure of another flotilla from Turkish ports.

They parroted Israel's baseless claim that the ships could be used to transport weapons to Gaza, even though all participating vessels are searched thoroughly by Turkish officials before setting sail.

Their choice of language was interesting, describing the flotilla as being organised "to provoke a confrontation with Israel."

And, as if to provide an early justification for any repeat of last year's events, they warn that, if the flotilla proceeds, "Israelis will have little choice but to board the vessels and search for weapons. We fear violence could erupt just as it did last year."

However, Erdogan made his government position clear this week, telling a US TV programme that he rejects classification of Islamist resistance group Hamas as a terrorist body, insisting that it is a legitimate political party.

The Turkish prime minister is also on record as welcoming the Egyptian-mediated Palestinian reconciliation agreement as an essential step towards Middle East peace.

His government has already told Israel that it will not stop Freedom Flotilla 2 ships sailing from its ports, although it will advise participants of the potential dangers.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has pointed out too that last year's attack on the Mavi Marmara took place in the international waters of the Mediterranean Sea and "the Mediterranean is not the property of any country."

In contrast to Turkey's calls for calm and respect for international law, Israeli Prime Minister has demonised Palestinian unity, declaring: "A leopard has sunk its teeth in our flesh, in the flesh of our children, wives, our elderly and we will not be tempted to believe that this leopard has now changed its spots.

"We will not ignore its voracious growls. We will strike it down."

Such lurid threats will not be dismissed lightly by Palestinians currently commemorating the 63rd anniversary of the Nakba when forces of the nascent Israel drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Arabs into exile or killed them.

They witness on a daily basis the continuing dispossession that has continued unabated since the Nakba began and their complaints are confirmed by Israeli organisations.

Israeli daily paper Haaretz revealed this week that Israel had used a covert procedure to cancel the residency status of 140,000 West Bank Palestinians between 1967 and 1994.

It published a document secured under freedom of information legislation by the Centre for the Defence of the Individual from Israel's Judea and Samaria Justice Ministry.

This states that Palestinian West Bank residents who travelled abroad via Jordan had to leave their ID cards at the Allenby Bridge border crossing in return for a crossing card valid for three years and, if they did not return within six months of its expiry, they would be regarded as no longer resident.

Human rights group B'Tselem (www.btselem.org) has issued its latest report documenting Israel's activities in the occupied Jordan Valley and northern Dead Sea area, the largest land reserves in the West Bank.

It catalogues a framework of agricultural exploitation, military firing zones, nature reserves, landmine fields, apartheid wall construction and illegal settlement expansion to lay bare the state's intention of "de facto annexation of the Jordan Valley and the northern Dead Sea area to the state of Israel."

When Israelis celebrated their Independence Day on Tuesday, Palestinian children marched in national dress carrying large symbolic keys and placards denoting the homes from which their families were driven.

They appealed to UN secretary general Ban Ki Moon to stand with the oppressed rather than the oppressors and urged him to find a just solution to the Palestinian cause.

While the US-designated international community ignores that plea, people power in the shape of next month's Freedom Flotilla 2, including a refurbished Mavi Marmara, will ensure that the Palestinian people's plight is highlighted once more.