By DPA Last update - 23:11 02/12/2008
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1043013.html

A group of Jordanian Islamists will set sail for the Gaza Strip from the
Jordanian port of Aqaba on December 20 with the aim of breaking the siege of
the Palestinian territory, the leader of Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood
movement announced Tuesday.

The decision was announced at a press conference attended by leaders of the
Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood movement and its political arm, the Islamic
Action Front (IAF).

The Brotherhood's leader, Hammam Saeed, said that the inhabitants of the
Gaza Strip were being exposed to "a tragedy as represented by an appalling
and inhuman blockade that had reached new proportions by preventing them
from performing pilgrimage."

Gazan Muslims have been prevented from performing their obligatory
pilgrimage, or Hajj, duties due to the ongoing blockade of Gaza and
infighting between Hamas and Fatah, the two rival Palestinian factions.

Saeed urged Egypt to reopen the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt
in order to allow thousands of pilgrims to travel to Saudi Arabia to perform
hajj rituals at the Grand Mosque of Mecca, due to begin on Saturday.

The Brotherhood leader also unveiled a series of activities and
demonstrations to be launched throughout the country in the run-up to the
ship's sailing on December 20.

On Monday Israeli authorities turned back a Libyan ship carrying
humanitarian aid that had been bound for Gaza.

Earlier this year several vessels with foreign pro-Palestinian activists on
board succeeded in docking at Gaza's seaport.