Largest Ever Attempt to Break Israel’s Blockade of Gaza Sets Sail

Two dozen boats left Barcelona port on Sunday carrying hundreds of people and kilos of food towards Gaza, in the largest ever bid to break Israel’s siege and open a humanitarian aid corridor. 

World-famous climate justice campaigner Greta Thunberg and Brazilian humanitarian Thiago Ávila are among a steering committee of activists leading the mission, from on board a mid-sized boat currently called the Family. Ávila said all the boats will be given Palestinian names later in their journey. 

Novara Media contributor Kieran Andrieu, who is British-Palestinian, is also on the flotilla and will be updating us on its progress over the next fortnight. 

Boats varying in size from small sailing yachts with just a few people onboard to large cruisers with a capacity of several dozen left the Spanish city in procession from 3pm on Sunday. They carried delegations from 44 countries, including South Africa, Ireland, Malaysia, Great Britain and the United States. 

A rally of thousands clad in keffiyehs and carrying Palestine flags gathered at the port in the blazing sun to see the flotilla off, with an enormous media scrum forming around Thunberg, who boarded wearing a Palestine Action T-shirt.

Other famous participants include former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau and comedian Tadhg Hickey.

Ávila described the flotilla as a “necessity”. “We cannot stand seeing children being starved to death anymore, hospitals being bombed, schools being bombed, shelters being bombed,” he told Novara Media. “What we’re trying to do right now is to say that each and every one of us has a historical task to do, which is to open the way to break the siege, to create a humanitarian corridor to the Palestinian people.”

Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham, who travelled to Barcelona to support the flotilla, spoke at a press conference earlier on Sunday, where he played a recording of a Palestinian child making arrangements for her own funeral. “What sort of a world have we slid into … when children, beautiful angels like that of five or six years old, are making their own funeral arrangements?” he asked the crowd.

Organisers said 26,000 people responded to a public callout for participants. Those chosen arrived in Barcelona earlier in the week and underwent compulsory training, which included what to do if the boats are intercepted by the Israeli military – as has happened to all recent past attempts.

Despite the enormous scale of the flotilla, most of the organising happened behind closed doors and at the last minute, with limited information released in advance – or at all – for fear of both bureaucratic and literal sabotage by Israeli agents. When the Handala crew were preparing to leave the Italian port of Gallipoli in July, they were delayed after acid was delivered instead of drinking water and a rope was found wrapped around the boat’s propeller.

As a result of the covert organising, participants were not told which vessel they would be on until less than an hour before departure, when Ávila stood on a bin to read out a list of names, boat by boat.

Barcelona was chosen as a base for the mission because organisers hoped the strong public and political support for Palestine in Catalonia would offer some protection. It seems they were right, as 24 boats left on time. But such a westerly departure point will result in a long journey, with the flotilla expected to spend around two weeks at sea.

Several of those on board have tried to sail to Gaza before, including Ávila, American professor and lawyer Frank Romano and former UN staffer Chloe Ludden, who were all on the Handala when it was seized by Israel in international waters last month. 

Thunberg told Novara Media that this will be her third attempt to deliver aid to Gaza – and the 38th ever. Before joining the Madleen, which was intercepted in June, she had been due to go on the Conscience, which was forced to abort its mission after being attacked by drones off the coast of Malta in May.

“When I was on the Madleen, when we were taken, we made it very clear, we will be coming back, and that is a promise, because no matter what the odds are, we have to keep trying,” she told Novara Media. “Now we’re coming back with dozens of boats.”

For the first time, a boat of nine US army veterans also joined the flotilla. Greg Stoker, who went on four combat deployments to Afghanistan before becoming “radicalised” and quitting the US military, said he hoped they could use “veteran worship” to draw support for the mission. “There’s a lot of public pressure that we can leverage because of our social and cultural capital within American society,” he said. “Politicians like to put us on a pedestal”.

It is understood that boats from several other Spanish ports will meet the flotilla at sea on Sunday or Monday. On 4 September, five days into the voyage, others will sail from Italy and North Africa to join them near Tunis, swelling the fleet to an unprecedented size.