Yesterday Israeli forces intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) that has spent the past month sailing across the Mediterranean Sea to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, blockading and intercepting the boats just dozens of miles from the territory’s coast and arresting its crew. It’s the latest daring operation for a military force that has spent the last two years bravely fighting unarmed women and children, now moving on to deploying its navy against aid boats armed with baby formula.
By this morning, Israel had seized all but two of the boats, taking into custody hundreds of foreign citizens and scheduling some for deportation. Incredibly, by late last night, one of the boats, the Mekino, made it into Gazan waters, roughly twenty kilometers from the occupied territory’s shore, though organizers have reportedly lost contact with the boat and its position on the GSF’s official tracker has not budged in many hours.
If this geolocation proves correct, it would be a stunning triumph: unarmed boats that even the flotilla crew describe as barely seaworthy managed to break the Israeli blockade. It raises the question, as UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese put it, “why states don’t break the blockade with their navies,” to ease the Israeli-made famine in Gaza that has been condemned by governments the world over.
Confusion reigned as Israeli vessels began encircling and boarding the boats last night, even among the flotilla crew. Divided among more than forty boats spread across miles of water, and suffering communication blackouts as Israeli ships attempted to halt them, the crew themselves were often in the dark about exactly what was happening. Even as accounts filtered in during the evening that the lead ship, the Alma…
Auteur: Branko Marcetic
