Brussels – The bad weather does not stop the Global Sumud Flotilla. Although somewhat behind schedule, participants in the transnational initiative resumed sailing and are navigating towards the shores of Gaza. In the coming days, other boats will join the humanitarian expedition to provide relief to the Palestinians in the Strip, which Israel has been indiscriminately massacring for over 22 months. There are also several Italian politicians on board the “resistance fleet.” International support for the solidarity mission of the Global Sumud Flotilla continues to grow, the largest civil society mobilisation in recent history, which has just set sail for Gaza to break the illegal blockade imposed by Israel and open a maritime humanitarian corridor in an attempt to get the aid that the Palestinian population desperately needs into the Strip, after almost two years of incessant bombardment and the famine artificially created byTel Aviv.
In recent hours, several politicians from different countries have voluntarily “signed up,” including four Italians. There are MEPs Benedetta Scuderi (Avs) and Annalisa Corrado (PD), Senator Marco Croatti (M5s), and MEP Arturo Scotto (PD). Also with them are two other members of the Left Group in the Euro Chamber, the French Emma Fourreau and the Irish Lynn Boylan (the latter on board an independent ship that will monitor the course of operations).
“This government is complicit,” Scuderi denounced, pointing at Palazzo Chigi, renewing calls to “put pressure” on Benjamin Netanyahu – wanted by the International Criminal Court for
war crimes and crimes against humanity – and “stop sending armaments” to Tel Aviv and lamenting the silence of Giorgia Meloni and Ursula von der Leyen on the Flotilla.
Corrado invokes the “protection” of the President of the Republic, Sergio Mattarella, and emphasises how in the Strip not only “65,000 human beings, mostly civilians and children” have died, but also “democracy, confidence in politics and international institutions, amid silence and inaction.” “In Gaza we are all dying, all of us,” she notes, comparing the Flotilla to a “Noah’s Ark of our time.”
The departure of the Flotilla was not the easiest. Due to adverse weather conditions, some 30 boats with over 300 activists set sail from Barcelona on the night of 31 August, but had to return to the Catalan port a few hours after setting sail, at dawn on 1 September. From there, they left the same evening, but for a second time yesterday (2 September), five small boats had to return to repair the damage.
The other 24 continued, minus seven that stopped at the Balearic Islands for further repairs and to wait for the boats that had meanwhile departed from Barcelona. The convoy was supposed to reunite tomorrow (4 September) with the rest of the Flotilla off the Tunisian coast, but the appointment has apparently been postponed to 7 September. At that point, those who left from Genoa, Sicily, and Greece will also join to sail together to Gaza. The Emergency organisation announced that it will join the mission with its Life support ship.
In the meantime, political pressure on Israel is intensifying, even though concrete actions by Western governments to end the extermination of the Gazawi and ensure the delivery of humanitarian aid to the battered coastline exclave continue to be lacking. In the European Parliament in Strasbourg, a written question to High Representative Kaja Kallas regarding the massacre of Palestinian journalists in Gaza — over 240 since October 2023, according to UN data — has gathered around a hundred signatures. Democratic Party MEP Sandro Ruotolo put forward the initiative, stating: “Those who target journalists are attacking the right to know the truth.”
Yesterday, Belgium joined the group of countries ready to recognise the State of Palestine at the upcoming UN General Assembly, following in the most recent footsteps of France, Malta, and the United Kingdom. Only a few days earlier, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) certified that Tel Aviv is perpetrating the “crime of crimes” in the Strip, confirming the findings of Israeli NGOs.
The Jewish state responds with a show of force. The Israeli navy conducted an exercise in the waters off Gaza, while several unidentified drones flew over the boats of the Flotilla, probably to monitor them. On the other hand, the drones that hit the structures where the UNIFIL blue helmets are stationed were undoubtedly Israeli, as was the Tel Aviv Air Force aircraft that landed at the Military Airport of Sigonella in the past few hours, after flying over Sicily. As for the activists of the Flotilla, the ultra-Orthodox Minister of National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, claimed that he considered them to be “terrorists” and would treat them accordingly.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
