Italy sends second warship to protect flotilla – but asks it to surrender its aid to Israel

Italy has despatched a second warship to support the humanitarian Global Sumud Flotilla en route to deliver aid to Gaza and break Israel’s criminal starvation blockade, following continued – now nightly – Israeli attacks on the fleet of volunteer-crewed boats.

But at the same time, the Italian government has tried to pressure the flotilla to capitulate to Israeli demands to surrender its aid supplies – in this case to the local Catholic Church, which Israel will supposedly allow to distribute the aid in Gaza unmolested, despite the occupation’s diversion of aid to the criminal gangs it funds and its near-daily slaughter of desperate Palestinian aid-seekers.

Italy sending more support to the Global Sumud Flotilla – but with demands

The Global Sumud Flotilla consists of around fifty civilian vessels crewed by lawyers, politicians, medics and activists and has been repeatedly bombed by drones and buzzed by fighter aircraft, now with the added psychological warfare of drones playing loud music all night to try to deprive crews of sleep. Despite this one-sided aggression, the Israeli government is claiming that it is the unarmed humanitarian volunteers who are ‘pursuing violence’.

Italy sent a first naval ship earlier this week to ‘assist’ the flotilla after it was bombed by at least fifteen drones in international waters near Greece. Spain followed suit shortly afterward. So far, no crew member has been reported killed or seriously hurt.

Italian PM Giorgia Meloni said the government’s proposal was to hand the aid over in Cyprus to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem for distribution in Gaza, and tried to blame the flotilla organisers for not accepting the ‘offer’.

Israel continues to maintain its vice-like grip on food and other essentials in Gaza while shooting and shelling starving aid-seekers at the ‘GHF’ so-called ‘aid’ stations it controls and funding an ISIS-linked criminal gang to steal aid and kill Palestinian refugees.

The flotilla crews have said they will continue on their mission to deliver the aid directly.

Featured image via the Canary