A Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship carrying humanitarian aid with prominent activists on board is en route to the besieged Palestinian territory Gaza which faces acute food shortage while Israel has threatened to block the ship to enforce its blockade.
Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, French jurist Rima Hassan, who is a member of the European Parliament, Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, “Game of Thrones” actor Liam Cunningham are among the 12 civilians are on board the Madleen ship.
Madleen departed Catania, Sicily, on June 1.
Freedom Flotilla organization said its launch comes “just one month after Israeli drones bombed Conscience, another Freedom Flotilla aid ship, in international waters off the coast of Malta—underscoring both the urgency and the danger of this mission to break the siege on Gaza.”
The ship has been named after Gaza’s first and only fisherwoman in 2014. The organization said Madleen “symbolizes the unyielding spirit of Palestinian resilience and the growing global resistance to Israel’s use of collective punishment and deliberate starvation policies.”
Gaza has already been under Israel’s land, sea and air blockade since 2007. Israeli officials argue that the blockade is necessary to prevent weapons smuggling into the enclave.
In recent three months, aid levels have dropped to their lowest since the start of the Israel-Hamas war with the United Nations warning that Gaza is the hungriest place on the planet where people are facing famine and starvation.
The 2,000km (1,250-mile) journey is expected to complete in 12 hours.
Madleen is carrying urgently needed supplies for the people of Gaza, including baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics.
The ship’s location is being monitored live by Forensic Architecture and a Garmin live tracker on board is being used.
Meanwhile, Israel’s government on Sunday said it would prevent from reaching the Gaza Strip.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said his country would not allow anyone to break its naval blockade of the Palestinian territory.
“To the antisemitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propagandists — I will say this clearly: You should turn back, because you will not make it to Gaza,” Katz said in a statement.
Thiago Ávila, a Brazilian activist on board the boat, posted a video on social media Sunday afternoon saying someone appeared to be jamming their tracking and communication devices about 160 nautical miles from Gaza.
Despite all the Israeli threats, the campaigners on board the ship have vowed to continue the journey “until the last minute”.
Flotilla Foundation released the names of the activists and human rights defenders on board the ship in the following order:
Yasemin Acar – Germany
Baptiste Andre – France
Thiago Avila – Brazil
Omar Faiad – France
Rima Hassan – France
Pascal Maurieras- France
Yanis Mhamdi – France
Şuayb Ordu – Turkey
Greta Thunberg – Sweden
Sergio Toribio – Spain
Marco Van Rennes – The Netherlands
Reva Viard – France
Meanwhile, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, criticized the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s aid delivery system, calling the use of “aid distribution” a form of “humanitarian camouflage”.
In a post on X, she described the move as “an essential tactic of this genocide”.
Israel and the United States have denied that Israeli operations in Gaza can be categorized as genocide.
“History will prove right those who had sounded the alarm, and it will be of no consolation: the damage is done,” Albanese wrote, placing blame on what she called the “moral and political corruption of the world we live in”.
The statement comes amid repeated reports of deadly Israeli gunfire near aid distribution points in Gaza, where an unknown number of Palestinians have been killed while attempting to access humanitarian assistance.
Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported Sunday that Christoph Schweizer, the CEO of Boston Consulting Group, apologized to staff and admitted “process failures” in the company’s decision to help design and run a controversial Israeli-backed group that supplanted the work of the United Nations to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip.
“I deeply regret that in this situation, we fell short — of our own standards and of the trust that you, our clients and our broader communities place in BCG,” he wrote. “I am sorry for how deeply disappointing this has been to many BCGers around the world.”
According to the Post, Israel and the United States bypassed the U.N. to channel the delivery of essential aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a relatively unknown entity that has limited aid delivery to a few distribution spots. U.S. private security contractors and Israel Defense Forces oversee aid delivery process.
The latest war in Gaza started on October 7, 2023 when Palestinian militant organization Hamas attacked southern parts of Israel. According to Israeli officials, the terrorist attack by Hamas, which has been designated by the United States as terrorist organization, killed 1200 people. Besides, Hamas took around 250 people as hostages to Gaza.
According to Health Ministry in Gaza, which has been ruled by Hamas, Israeli military attacks have killed more than 54000 Palestinians including a large number of women and children.
Views News Now Correspondent Iftikhar Ali contributed to this report.
