Around twenty boats under the Palestinian flag left the port of Barcelona at 3:30 p.m. on Sunday with hundreds of activists on board."A mission like this shouldn't really exist," Thunberg said. But it is necessary because states and their elected representatives are not doing enough for Gaza.
Specifically, Thunberg is concerned with upholding international law and preventing war crimes and genocide. States and governments are failing to fulfill their responsibilities and violating"their legal duty," Thunberg criticized."And in doing so, they are betraying the Palestinians, but also all of humanity." The new Gaza aid flotilla is being organized by a group that describes itself as an "independent" organization and calls itself the Global Sumud Flotilla."Sumud" is the Arabic word for "resilience."
According to Thunberg, the activists involved aim to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and"announce the opening of an aid corridor and then bring in more aid." The action is directed against Israel's "illegal and inhumane siege of the Gaza Strip," said the 22-year-old Swede.
Brazilian activist Thiago Avila told journalists in Barcelona that it was"the largest solidarity mission in history, with more people and boats than all previous attempts combined." Boats from ports in other regions of the world will also join the effort.
Spain supports action
In addition to the people aboard the flotilla, numerous activists in dozens of countries participated in the action, including Irish actor Liam Cunningham."The fact that the flotilla is underway demonstrates the world's failure to enforce international and humanitarian law," Cunningham told reporters. It is a"shameful time in the history of our world."
Spain supported the action. The Spanish government will"use all its diplomatic and consular resources to protect our citizens," said Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares.
Action stopped
In June and July, Israel thwarted two attempts by activists to bring aid to the Gaza Strip in an aid flotilla. The Israeli army stopped the ships involved, arrested the crews, and expelled them. Thunberg participated in the aid flotilla in June, which was stopped by the Israeli Navy about 185 kilometers west of the coast of the Palestinian Territories. The Swede had previously participated in pro-Palestinian protests.
Independently of the war in the Gaza Strip, Israel maintains a strict sea-fencing policy against the Palestinian territory. This policy was introduced in 2007 after the Islamist Palestinian organization Hamas seized power, and is officially supported by Egypt, which borders the coastal strip to the south. The purpose of the seal is to prevent arms deliveries to Hamas.
On August 22, the UN declared that there was a famine in the Gaza Strip. It accused Israel of"systematically obstructing" aid deliveries to the Palestinian territory. The Israeli government angrily rejected the accusations.
Calls for an end to the war are growing louder
Calls for an end to the almost 23-month-long war in the Gaza Strip are growing louder worldwide. The humanitarian situation in the Palestinian territory is catastrophic.
Hamas and its allied Palestinian groups triggered the Gaza War with their brutal, major attack on Israel on October 7, 2023. Since then, Israel has waged massive military attacks in the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas authorities, more than 63,370 people have been killed, most of them civilians. This information cannot be independently verified but is considered plausible by UN officials.
