Freedom Flotilla activists are demanding their side of the Mavi Marmara massacre story is heard, in response to heavy Western media bias and an Israeli government cover-up over the incident.

The protestors’ demands have focused on the return of the stolen mobile phones, laptop computers, cameras and other items that might contain evidence of what really occurred on the Mavi Marmara, as well as the immediate unconditional release of the captured passengers and crew. They even had to demand the release of the victims’ bodies.

The BBC, which has been slavishly pro-US since being neutered after the invasion of Iraq, busied itself in the hours immediately after the attack by interviewing Israeli ambassadors and government spokespersons, at a time when nearly all of the 600-odd victims (the only non-Israeli witnesses) were in Israeli custody and shut off from the outside world. Hardly any representatives of the protest organisers were invited for interviews. This does not even adhere to the BBC’s supposedly famous principle of balance.

There was no shortage of video evidence of the event taken aboard the ship, but it was immediately confiscated by the Israeli Defence Forces, who then spent days heavily editing some of their own footage for release to the world’s media. One hour of footage did manage to escape from the flotilla via American pro-Palestine activist Iara Lee, but the film – which shows the crew appealing to the IDF to halt the violence and giving medical aid to IDF soldiers – has not been shown by major media corporations.

In Israel not even the slightest criticism of the attack on the flotilla was tolerated. The daily paper Ma’ariv said “…despite the temptation to give advice, engage in keyboard criticism and break down the operation with the benefit of hindsight, we should shut up and salute the fighters and their officers.”

Journalists’ and other media workers’ trade unions should take direct action, including pulling the plugs and halting the presses, to expose any government, media owners, or editorial suppression of pro-Palestinian views.

But we need to go further to help the cause for which the murdered activists died – freedom for the 1.5 million people of Gaza, 1,300 of whom were killed by Israel’s bombing in 2008-09.

Gaza has been kept under an almost total siege for the last three years, ever since the elected Hamas government defeated an attempted coup in Gaza by elements of the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority (PA) security services in June 2007. Prior to this, Israel had refused to recognise or deal with any PA administration containing Hamas, until it had renounced “terror” and recognised Israel. Israel even placed sanctions on the whole of the 1967 occupied Palestinian territories in order to pressure the PA’s Fatah president Mahmoud Abbas to break his coalition with Hamas and wage a Palestinian civil war on Israel’s behalf.

Today, Abbas clings on to power in the West Bank only with Israel’s protection. His presidential term expired in January 2009 without any new elections being held. This scandalous denial of the Palestinian people’s right to choose their own leaders is what lies behind the siege, and it should be roundly condemned by all, whatever criticisms we may have of Hamas’ reactionary religious politics.

Israel insists that its blockade of Gaza is necessary to prevent the smuggling of arms. But a recent court case has revealed that Israel has prohibited the import of such dangerous items as: fresh meat, tinned food, jam, chocolate, fabrics, notebooks, toys and donkeys. Bizarrely, cinnamon, combs, plastic buckets and Israeli-produced tomato paste are allowed in, while coriander has only just been legalised.

In fact, Israel officially allows only about 100 different products into Gaza, while the average Israeli supermarket contains more than 12,000.

Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the previous Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert, justified this policy in February 2006 by saying that the idea was “to put the Palestinians on a diet, but not to make them die of hunger”, with the clear intention of using hunger to force the Palestinians to make Hamas cave-in to Israel’s conditions or force them out of power.

In the meantime, the number of Gazans dependent on food aid has trebled to 300,000, or one in every five persons. There are shortages of essential medicines, and chronic malnutrition affects one in 10. Four out of five Gazans depend on external aid to survive – at that’s when it can get through.

We should fight to make sure that all states end their de facto recognition of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, and in Egypt’s case its active support of it, and call for international recognition for the elected Hamas administration.

We should support all efforts to challenge and break the blockade, including the sending of a fleet of aid ships and land convoys. And crucially, we should demand the severing of all diplomatic, economic, cultural and military ties with Israel until the siege of Gaza is totally lifted.