Brussels – The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is at it again. It is aiming for the Gaza Strip. A boat of the collective that has been fighting for the rights of the Palestinian people for almost twenty years set sail on Sunday, June 1 from Catania and should see the Middle East coasts by June 7, at the latest. The conditional is a must: the Israeli navy has already stated that it is ready to stop the crew of the Madleen. Among the twelve volunteers are well-known Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and French MEP Rima Hassan.
According to the tracking system provided by the collective, in the late morning of today (June 4), the vessel was skirting the coast of the island of Crete. Tonight, a drone of the Hellenic Coast Guard was spotted flying over the Madleen, about 40 miles from Greek territorial waters. Just a month ago, another Flotilla boat was destroyed in international waters off the coast of Malta. The collective immediately attributed the attack, which caused no casualties or injuries, to Israeli drones. In 2010, it went much worse on the Mavi Marmara, on which Israel opened fire and on which ten Freedom Flotilla volunteers died.
The collective, and in particular Thunberg and Hassan, are making daily appeals to Western governments “to guarantee safe passage to the Madleen and all humanitarian ships,” to the media “to report this mission with accuracy and integrity,” and to civil society “to refuse to be silent and to act for Gaza.” In the hope that keeping up the attention will put pressure on Israel and ultimately serve as a pass to Gaza. Today, in a post on X, the co-president of the Left Group in the European Parliament, Manon Aubry, addressed the leadership of the European institutions, calling for the security of the humanitarian convoy. “The EU cannot remain silent in the face of threats to the transport of humanitarian aid to Gaza,” said the French MEP from La France Insoumise.
The French radical left party led by Jean-Luc Mélenchon includes Rima Hassan, the first Palestinian MEP in history, born in 1992 in a refugee camp near Aleppo, Syria, to a Palestinian family expelled during the 1948 Nakba. Arriving in France at age ten, Hassan was granted political asylum and French citizenship when she came of age. A lawyer specializing in international law, she has several years of activism behind her. She has distinguished herself as one of the voices most critical of Israeli crimes in the Strasbourg courtroom.
“I am on board the Madleen because silence is not neutrality; it is complicity. The Palestinian people in Gaza are being starved and slaughtered, and the world is watching. This ship is carrying not only aid but also a demand: end the blockade, end the genocide,” Hassan said. In a statement, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition emphasized that this was a “peaceful act of civil resistance” and that the entire crew “is trained in non-violence.” Hassan, on her social channels, explained that the 12 had prepared extensively for all possible scenarios: from the worst, a military attack on the boat, to arrest by Israeli authorities or other “allied” countries that might intercept them before they reach Gaza. To the remote possibility that they might actually arrive in the torn shores of the Palestinian enclave.
