Where I wish I was right now:  on board a Free Gaza boat heading for the coast with relief supplies.  From Friday’s NYT:

Israel braced for a showdown with a flotilla of nine vessels carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and thousands of tons of supplies headed for Gaza. It was the most ambitious attempt so far to break Israel’s maritime blockade of the Hamas-run coastal enclave.

The naval police in Gaza City on Wednesday made preparations for the arrival of a flotilla carrying activists and supplies.

The flotilla of cargo ships and passenger boats, led by the Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish organization, Insani Yardim Vakfi, converged at sea from a number of countries over the last 10 days.

Israel, which says it allows basic supplies into Gaza through points along the land border, denounced the flotilla as a political provocation and has vowed not to let the boats reach Gaza.

The Israeli blockade has been going on nearly three years, to what should be Israel’s utter shame.   It may well be what Ariel Sharon had in mind when he ordered Israel’s “withdrawal” from Gaza in 2005 — get out, surround the whole strip with barbed wire and military, establish absolute control over what and who comes in and out, and  turn it into a kind of huge internment camp.  On paper:  withdrawal.  In practice:  a stranglehold.

It makes me want to scream.