TBA News

By Dr. Fatima Ibrahim Al Menoufy

Again and again a humanitarian aid ship belonging to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, en route to Gaza, was attacked by an Israeli drone while in international waters off Malta early Friday morning. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which is an international NGO, was trying to break Israel’s suffocating siege of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid, medicine, food, and dignity to the 2 million Palestinians trapped in what Amnesty International calls “the world’s largest open-air prison.”

For two months, Israel has prevented any humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, shortly before it broke a ceasefire with Hamas and restarted its genocide once again, which has devastated the Palestinian enclave and killed more than 60,000 people. This inhumane besiege pushed Gaza into what is believed to be the worst humanitarian crisis since the nearly 19-month genocide.

The international Freedom Flotilla Coalition

The international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from all over the world working together to end the blockade of Gaza.

It was formed after the 2010 Freedom Flotilla mission, in order to coordinate action between numerous local campaigns that joined the efforts against the siege of the Gaza Strip.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) states on its website that it has “effectively challenged the Israeli blockade of Gaza by sea since 2010, continuing the powerful precedent set by the Free Gaza Movement, which began operating boats to the Strip in 2008.” Its activities aim to uphold international law and the rights of the Palestinian people to freedom of movement, self-determination, and dignity.

Mavi Marmara

Yesterday the Mavi Marmara Ship, today the humanitarian ship Conscience. Despite all obstacles, the Freedom Flotilla Will Continue Its Struggle to Stop the Genocide!

This attack reminds us of the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara, the lead ship of the 2010 Freedom Flotilla, fifteen years ago, when the Israeli navy and commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish ship whose only cargo was hope. In May 2010, six civilian vessels sailed from Istanbul carrying 750 activists from 37 nations. Their mission was to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza and deliver 6,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinians.

Before the dawn of May 31, shattering the peace of a Mediterranean night, in international waters, 13 unit of the Israeli navy stormed the Mavi Marmara, the

flagship of a flotilla crewed by an alliance of pro-Palestinian activists who had combined to deliver 10,000 tonnes of aid to Gaza.

In a blitz of military strength, Israel unleashed naval frigates, helicopters, and swarms of armed commandos, masked commandos descended on to the Turkish ship’s deck from a helicopter and boarded from the side by fast attack launch. They were armed with guns, stun grenades and tear gas. They started firing live bullets into a crowd of unarmed humanitarians. Nine activists were massacred on the spot, and one died later after years of being wounded. Thirty others bled on the deck. Among the dead were Furkan Doğan, a 19-year-old Turkish-American student shot five times at point-blank range, and İbrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old engineer who brought toys for Gaza’s children.

Blocking communication to hide their crimes

What is certainly true is that shortly after the assault, all communications with Mavi Marmara were blocked. Mobile phones, satellite phones and internet access all went down, making it all but impossible for the passengers to document what had happened, beyond the few minutes that were captured on film. Israel’s version of events became the only one available in any detail.

For this, Israel offered a belated apology in 2013, void words that rang hollow as the blockade tightened. Compensation was paid, but promises of “humanitarian access” evaporated like smoke.

Israeli army destroys all national memorials, monuments in Palestinian cities

Last year, Israel bulldozed a Gaza monument honoring the Mavi Marmara heros, erasing their memory from the very land they tried to save. What is called the IDF purposely targets all memorials and monuments throughout Palestinian cities, such as the late President Yasser Arafat statue in the West Bank and the Mavi Marmara Martyrs Memorial in Gaza.

Freedom Flottila is window of hope for people in Gaza

For Israel, those activists are not humanitarians but provocateurs, supporters of terror. For Palestinians, they are hope, lifelines. For the rest of us, they are forcing us to confront the grotesque reality that each one of us has a role to play, has a responsibility to support our sisters and brother, to make us realize that in 2024, a nuclear-armed rogue state still bombs unarmed ships and demolishes memorials to the dead without finding anyone to stop it, all to maintain its chokehold on a people it has imprisoned for long years.

They dare because they found none to stop their crimes against humanity

This will happen again and again because the criminals examined the international system, examined the near and the far, examined the whole world and they know there is no one there to stop them.

Thousands of lives were stolen. Millions of Gazans condemned to hunger, sickness, and despair. And still, the world’s dysfunctional international system, the world governments look away, complicit in their silence.