Freedom Flotilla launches more Gaza boats in response to Israeli piracy

The ‘Freedom Flotilla Coalition‘ (FFC) of humanitarian boats has launched further vessels bound for Gaza, in response to Israel’s terrorist pirating of ships and boats attempting to deliver aid to starving Palestinians.

The vessels — the Adalah, Kyriakos X, Lina Al Nabulsi, PERSEVERANCE and Tenaz Love Aqsa Bangladesh — have set sail from a Greek island today, 13 May 2026. They form part of the broader international flotilla effort to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza and challenge Its impunity in enabling genocide, starvation, and the wholesale erasure of the Palestinian people.

These boats will join approximately 55 additional vessels departing from Marmaris, Türkiye, sailing under French, Italian and Polish flags. The flotilla will carry food and medicine in defiance of Israel’s brutal and criminal blockade of oppressed Palestinians in Gaza. The so-called ‘international community’ has failed to challenge Israel’s blatant war crimes and crimes against humanity as part of its Gaza genocide.

A flotilla of humanitarian aid

The FFC has sailed dozens of vessels to challenge to Israel’s blockade, building on the historic missions of the Free Gaza Movement, which first broke the blockade by sea in 2008. After the June 2025 voyage of the Madleen, international participation in flotilla initiatives expanded significantly, reflecting growing global civil society’s refusal to accept the normalisation of siege and genocide.

On 29 April, Israel attacked 22 civilian vessels off the western coast of Greece. The occupation military abducted and tortured two Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) organisers and abused other crew members. Israel and the United States have attempted to smear and criminalise the GSF. Following the same pattern as the Starmer regime in the UK, the terror regimes have made baseless allegations attempting to delegitimise civilian resistance and manufacture public consent for further attacks on the mission.

Palestinians in Gaza have endured two decades of a deadly blockade, repeated military assaults, forced deprivation, sexual violence and ongoing genocide. They see the flotilla as an act of international civilian resistance against settler colonial violence and the global machinery that sustains it. To their shame, the UK and other western governments have only enabled this criminality and piracy, doing nothing to protect their citizens who are taking part in the humanitarian effort.

Featured image via GreenPeace