New Gaza flotilla planned despite eased blockade

A coalition of pro-Palestinian groups said today it plans to send a second aid flotilla to Gaza, dismissing Israel's promise to ease its blockade as not bold enough and defying Israeli warnings against any new sea-based activist operation.

Rory Byrne, a spokesman for the European Campaign to End the Siege of Gaza, said his group and others in the Freedom Flotilla Coalition have six ships and many activists who want to go to Gaza for an operation he hopes will be larger than the one that ended in bloodshed last month.