1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

We urge President Obama to condemn the massacre of civilians on an unarmed flotilla of ships in international waters carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. Israeli forces killed approximately 20 humanitarian workers in a pre-dawn raid of the flotilla and injured over 50 others.

Several Americans, including former Ambassador Edward L. Peck and Navy veteran Joe Meadors, Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland and hundreds of international activists from over 50 countries participating in the humanitarian aid effort partook in the flotilla and are now being held captive in Israeli prisons.

In a statement, United Nations officials said: "We wish to make clear that such tragedies are entirely avoidable if Israel heeds the repeated calls of the international community to end its counterproductive and unacceptable blockage of Gaza." The blockade on Gaza is in violation of Article 33 of the Geneva Conventions which prohibits collective punishment.

As people of conscience, we urge our elected government, which has too long financed Israel in its crimes, to condemn the Gaza Flotilla Massacre and to require an immediate end to the hermetic blockade of the Gaza Strip.