Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation who sponsored Al-Amal aid ship reaffirms that the purpose of the trip by Al-Amal was not to achieve media propaganda campaign or to carry out a provocative act. We are not in a battle with anyone, and our sole objective is to ensure the delivery of humanitarian assistance and alleviate the suffering of the besieged Palestinian people and provide them with the biggest possible support.

Al-Amal, which is no more than a cargo ship that has no distinguished features and may even be worn out, has caused the Israeli’s reaction that the entire world watched, and made them wage against it various types of discrediting, jam and pressure at different levels.

Our goal has always been to arrive in Gaza and to help the people of Gaza in order to achieve the goal of alleviating the suffering of the Palestinian people and provide them with the support they needed.

In the face of the Israeli insistence on preventing Al-Amal Ship to reach its destination, we believe that the Ship had achieved its purpose and showed to the whole world the truth about what is going on. The situation that faced Al-Amal ship made us think and compare between the alternatives available. The ship docking at Ashdod port was not considered an option, and it was unacceptable; we also did not have the intention to engage in confrontation and bloodshed by risking the lives of innocent people. The only alternative we had in mind the one that achieves the human, moral and political target for which Al-Amal ship sailed: to do all what is possible to provide the maximum possible support and to alleviate the suffering of the blockaded Palestinian people in Gaza so that they can achieve their full human rights.

All previous attempts at various levels have failed to do anything for the Palestinian people and to ease their suffering. The reconstruction has not started yet. Despite the fact that the Arab summit in Qatar earmarked funds for reconstruction, not a single country has been able to access Gaza to deliver supplies. So far, not even a sack of cement or a construction steel bar has been able to enter Gaza and not one dirham has been spent in compliance with the pledges made in Qatar.

But now the picture has changed after a European party offered to us intervention and mediation. The message conveyed to us by the mediator is that if the goal was to help the people of Gaza, that could be achieved, but if our goal is otherwise, the alternative would be to enter into confrontation with the Israelis and to assume the consequences and even in terms of victims who may fall. We have always said that our aim is to help the Palestinian people to achieve their rights; anything else would not achieve their interests. We put forward to the mediator our demands. Our response was in fact difficult to meet. We put forward a certain number of conditions, including lifting the blockade of Gaza and beginning the reconstruction process. We thought that Israel would not accept such conditions, but it seems that Al-Amal ship achieved some gains, and that we underestimated their position.

Our conditions were accepted, including allowing construction materials such as cement and steel to enter Gaza for reconstruction. Israel has always refused this. The mediator told us that they had accepted our conditions and would do whatever possible to implement them.

It was also accepted that Libya would spend US$ 50 million that it pledged at the Qatar summit to finance housing projects and make sure that Palestinian families would not spend winter in the open.

It was also agreed to allow the entry of construction materials, cement and iron, for the first time, and for the first time reconstruction projects will be carried out and UNRWA can start its construction projects and to launch the process of reconstruction.

Multilateral contacts have also been successful in extracting a number of concessions for the benefit of the blockaded Palestinians by allowing for the implementation of reconstruction projects in Gaza. The concerned parties have also pledged to allow patients to get treatment outside Gaza Strip, the transfer of patients for treatment outside Gaza.

In addition, the implementation of Foundation’s initiative to provide a first batch of 500 fully-equipped houses and decent housing that meets human dignity before winter was also accepted.

In return and taking into consideration these achievements, the Foundation, in order to reaffirm its desire to avoid confrontation with anyone, and keen to ensure the safety of all those on board the Ship, decided to redirect Al-Amal aid ship to the Egyptian port of El-Arish providing that the ship's cargo would be allowed to go to Gaza through Rafah crossing on the Egyptian side.

With such a positive feeling and results that could be reached by negotiation through mediators and provision of all the safeguards and commitment of all parties involved to implement the agreement, including sisterly Egypt, which provided us with all the guarantees to implement what was agreed upon, we believe Al-Amal’s goal has been achieved without bloodshed and that the outcome is to achieve gains for the Palestinians, which were inconceivable even in a dream.

The humanitarian suffering of the blockaded people of Gaza should not be the subject of trade-offs or altercation by any party, not even by Palestinians. The suffering of Gaza cannot be traded for political purposes for any party.

In response to the voices that say that the Libyans have to engage in armed confrontation, we say that this did not and would not offer to the Palestinian people anything. That request should rather be directed to the Arab armies, and not to a simple decaying cargo ship carrying nothing but food supplies and a limited number of young people who believe in the need to provide all assistance possible to the people of Gaza and to end their blockade.

All who is concerned with the Palestinian people should strive in all possible ways to accomplish beneficial goals, but not to take the suffering of the Palestinian as a cause or political tool to achieve gains through battles that may not be obligatory.

Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation

Tripoli: Wednesday, 14/07/2010

Based on the pioneering role of the Gaddafi International Charity and Development

Foundation, and in continuation of the principle of dialogue and tolerance emanating from the religious,moraland humanitarianvalues, andwhich aims to achieve peace, security and social progress; Confirming the content of the message addressed by President of the Foundation, Mr. Saif Al-Islam Gaddafi, to the Libyan youth involved in the various extremist and fighting groups in Algeria, Mali and Mauritania,during the press conference heheld in Tripoli on 24 March 2010 on the occasion of the release (214) prisoners from different organizational groups within the framework of the national dialogue program sponsored by the Foundation  and in which he called the Libyan youths to lay down arms and return home to Libya in view to contribute to the building of their society along with all guarantees for their reintegration into the community; In response to that call, and fully convinced by the language of dialogue and renunciation of extremism and violence,

  In the name of Allah, the Gracious, the Merciful.

 (So O our Lord, decide Thou between us and between our people with truth, and Thou art the Best of those who decide.’)

Allah the Almighty verily speaks the truth

Having wrapped up its first encounter with the families of Abu Slim Victims, which was held in Benghazi city under the slogan “Open dialogue for the sake of Libya of Tomorrow” on November 17-19, 2009, and after hearing the testimonies presented at this meeting, and which dealt with the way of arrest and security violations, including late reporting of deaths and the consequences of all those events as a whole, including denial of medical evacuation for the needy families, and the complexity of administrative procedures by Government entities, and the social implications resulting thereof,

In response to the victims’ families’ expressed keenness, responsibility and genuine desire to reach a comprehensive national reconciliation, the Human Rights Society calls upon all State institutions to assume their responsibility in the reconciliation process and to announce that quite frankly, seriously and in positive steps that would heal the citizens’ wounds;

And reviewing the statement of the victims’ families who expressed sincerely an unprecedented depth of national feeling, despite the depth of their wounds, the Human Rights Society of the Foundation finds itself compelled to stand in solidarity with the statement of the families of the victims, and furthermore, the Society calls for the following: