Beach resident Sandra Ruch will be spending this year's International Women's Day, Sunday, March 8, in the Gaza Strip.
Ruch is one of more than 50 international delegates who travelled halfway across the planet to show her solidarity against the closed border to Gaza.
"It's a cause close to my heart. I've got first-hand experience," said Ruch, an Israeli citizen who did activist work in the West Bank area from 2004 to 2006.
"There are so many problems in the world, but this is what spoke to me. We're hoping to open up the borders and put an end to this siege."
A project manager at a Toronto drug and alcohol treatment facility, Ruch was one of eight women arrested at the end of January during a protest outside the Israeli consulate on Bloor Street West.
CODEPINK, an American women's peace group, organized the trip at the invitation of the United Nations' Relief and Works Agency's (UNRWA) Gaza Gender Initiative.
The delegation, which includes Pulitzer prize-winning American author, Alice Walker, as well as retired U.S. state department official, Ann Wright, is the first of its kind to try to enter Gaza since the blockade was imposed in July 2007.
The delegation has a total of five Canadian members including Ruch; Kim Elliot, rabble.ca's publisher as well as a founding member of the Canadian-Palestinian Educational Exchange and Women Against Occupation; Ehab Lotayef, a Montreal engineer and member of the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine; Dalia Shabib, a Carleton University graduate and Canadian law student with family in Gaza; and Joanna Zilsel, a B.C. resident who works in sustainable building, alternative energy technologies and organic gardening.
The delegation is aiming to cross into Gaza on Saturday, March 7 and deliver 2,000 gift baskets to Gazan women as a sign of support and friendship. They're also planning on visiting refugee camps and hospitals as well as surveying the devastation from the 22-day bombardment of the controversial Palestinian strip, which killed more than 1,300 people, including 437 children, and injured more than 5,000 people.
The group is also aiming to meet and deliver aid to the Gaza Community Mental Health Workers, UNRWA Women's Committee, trade unions, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee and other UN and NGO groups.
Ruch, a member of the Israel's Women's Coalition for Peace in Israel and Canada's Independent Jewish Voices, said the group would camp outside the border until they are granted entry.
"It's all about attention," said Ruch, the mother of two adult daughters.
"It's okay to be Zionist. It's also okay to say what Israel is doing isn't right."
Ruch will be blogging about her experiences at www.rabble.ca as well as on her personal blog at www.miriamswell.spaces.lives.com