The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is “a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza”. It has been making the headlines recently as it heads to Gaza. But now, one of the on-board crew has warned that they believe Israel is preparing to attack it – again.
The Freedom Flotilla
The Freedom Flotilla re-set sail on 1 June. This was after Israel previously attacked the vessel. As the Canary reported at the time, armed Israeli drones attacked the front of the Freedom Flotilla, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull. The drone strike appears to have deliberately targeted the ship’s generator, leaving the crew without power and placing the vessel at great risk of sinking.
Undeterred the group continued their voyage. The Freedom Flotilla is aiming to take aid to help the Palestinian people that Israel has been starving since as part of its ongoing genocide.
However, now it seems Israel is preparing to attack the Freedom Flotilla again.
Israel preparing to attack?
Brazilian activist Thiago Avila is part of the Freedom Flotilla Madleen steering committee. This is a message he sent out on social media on Sunday 8 June:
We are here on board the Madleen, to break the siege of Gaza and to create a people’s humanitarian corridor, and we just received some really weird news, that according to our tracker we are no longer 162 nautical miles from Gaza, which is where we are, but according to the tracker we are at Jordan airport.
We know what that means, when they start jamming our communication, when they start messing with our devices, it means they are preparing for an interception, or an attack, and we all heard the Israeli media saying they deployed three special forces units (S13, S6 and S3) with 80 commandos each, and sea and air support with helicopter.
They are all used to commit war crimes, and S13 is the same unit that massacred 10 of our Freedom Flotilla participants 15 years ago.
They’re preparing to commit a war crime, and we need to stop that. We can stop that.
This is highly likely. As the Times of Israel reported, defense minister Israel Katz has told the IDF to prepare to “prevent’ the boat from reaching Gaza. He said that “I have instructed the IDF to act so that the Madleen does not reach Gaza. To the antisemitic Greta [Thunberg] and her friends, I say clearly: You should turn back, because you will not reach Gaza”.
Make some noise
Avila continued:
I’m convinced that if we mobilise enough, if we pressure enough the nation states, the governments, we can make such a pressure on the Zionist entity that they cannot afford to attack us, to intercept us.
We still have a chance to save this humanitarian aid, to preserve this boat, this mission and ourselves. We count on you right now.
Please share this news with everybody. There’s a lot at stake right now. We know this mission has been very successful in raising awareness and hope, but we still really need to guarantee the mission that we bring food to people who are being starved to death.
We will see you soon. Big hug, let’s transform this world!
Featured image via the Canary
