“Calling our European and French leaders, we need a safe passage for the Flotilla,” Rima Hassan, a French European MP on board the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), posted on X on Tuesday morning as the large collective of boats entered the final leg of their weeks’ long voyage to the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip.
Forty-five vessels crewed by hundreds of activists from over 40 countries are sailing towards Gaza with one mission: to break Israel’s 18-year-old siege of the Strip, deliver aid, and open a humanitarian corridor that circumvents Israel’s starvation campaign of the enclave’s population of 2.2 million.
The Global Sumud Flotilla is expected to reach the “high risk zone” in 24 hours where Israel previously intercepted, attacked, kidnapped, and detained the crews of previous flotillas.
As Al-Ahram Weekly went to press on Tuesday, the GSF’s live tracker showed the vessels 200 nautical miles from Gaza and 50 from the danger zone. Anticipating Israeli attacks, the Flotilla’s organisers have been making repeated calls for Western governments to provide them with protection and safe passage to Gaza’s shores.
“Demand safe passage from your government,” a statement on the GSF’s Telegram channel said on Tuesday.
The “failure of governments” to uphold international law to stop Israel’s genocide in Gaza has forced “ordinary citizens” to take extraordinary risks to uphold their obligations of delivering humanitarian aid and opening a desperately needed sea corridor to the enclave, it added.
After weeks of island-hopping and delays caused by suspected Israeli sabotage, the diverse convoy of aid boats has sailed in tight formation from their last stop south of Crete, watched by support vessels from several European navies and under the gaze of drones from both friends and foes.
The Flotilla, named Sumud, the Arabic for “steadfastness,” was formed earlier this year by an alliance of international NGOs, Palestinian civil society groups, European parliamentarians, doctors, union delegates, South African activists, and the Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, among several other well-known figures from global movements.
The next 48 hours will determine whether the mission becomes a historic breakthrough or another entry in Gaza’s long list of thwarted sea-borne aid attempts.
The fleet of fishing trawlers, converted ferries, and leisure craft is rich in symbolism, carrying names that encapsulate Palestinian and Arab struggles. The boat named Sherine, is named after Shireen Abu Akleh, the Aljazeera journalist killed by an Israeli Occupation Forces sniper in Jenin in 2022, for example.
The Omar Al-Mukhtar boat honours the Libyan anti-colonial leader executed by the country’s Italian occupiers in 1931, while the separate vessels Deir Yassin and Tantura refer to the Palestinian villages where massacres in 1948 by Zionist terror militias became a rallying cry of the Nakba.
The Family boat, described as the flagship, suffered engine failure near Crete last week, but the aid cargo and the people on board were relocated to other units of the Flotilla.
“The names are not cosmetic,” said David Adler, co-general coordinator of the Progressive International and one of the GSF organisers. “Every boat is a reminder of someone or some place scarred by injustice. We carry those memories with us into this sea.”
The Flotilla’s decision to skip further harbour calls is intended to maintain momentum and keep to what the organisers say is a humanitarian imperative: establishing an unbroken maritime corridor into Gaza bypassing Israeli-controlled crossings.
Adler and others have repeatedly appealed for state actors to join or escort the Flotilla, arguing that the presence of national vessels would add both legitimacy and protection.
“We are a civil flotilla, but we cannot remain alone,” Adler said in a ship-to-shore radio call. “If European governments really want the siege of Gaza lifted, they should sail with us with their flags visible to force open a maritime humanitarian corridor.”
The convoy’s progress is being tracked live on social media and by maritime-traffic apps, feeding round-the-clock coverage on Arabic-language TV channels and in European newsrooms. Each day at sea appears to deepen international investment in the outcome.
What began as a grassroots campaign has gathered diplomatic traction. Spain, Italy, and Greece have all announced the deployments of naval vessels in the Eastern Mediterranean “for humanitarian assistance and rescue purposes,” with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez telling the UN General Assembly that a Spanish ship would sail from Cartagena “with all necessary resources in case it is needed to assist the Flotilla”.
Turkey has provided monitoring and search-and-rescue support in the vicinity. Participants say a Turkish drone has been observed patrolling nearby, which organisers describe as a protective measure after a series of drone incidents targeted the convoy earlier in its journey. Ankara has not confirmed operational details.
On Monday, Italy’s major newspapers including La Repubblica, il Giornale and La Stampa featured the Flotilla on their front pages. Israel’s government has called the Sumud mission a “propaganda stunt,” alleging links to Hamas, an accusation organisers dismiss as baseless and for which no evidence has been provided.
Conversely, Flotilla leaders and several diplomats have pointed the finger at Israel as the most likely culprit behind earlier sabotage and drone harassment in Tunisian ports and in international waters.
At a Chatham House event in London, a journalist asserted that “Israel attacked the Flotilla in Tunisia” during a session with visiting Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who did not contest the characterisation.
In a separate TV interview, Tom Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and a former US envoy, remarked that “Israel is attacking everybody… attacking Tunisia” in comments widely interpreted as an inadvertent admission of Israeli responsibility.
Into this fraught atmosphere has come a new aerial presence as Turkish drones, tracked by open-source monitors under the call-sign VATOZ 21, have been seen circling the Flotilla for several days.
Ankara has offered no formal explanation, but Flotilla passengers say the drones feel like protection rather than a threat.
In June, a UK‑flagged aid vessel from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition carrying activists including Thunberg was intercepted in international waters by Israel. The Israeli naval forces boarded it, confiscated the aid it was carrying, detained the crew, and diverted the ship to Israel.
The following month, the Handala Flotilla was intercepted in international waters about 50 nautical miles from Gaza before it reached the Strip’s maritime zone. The ship was towed to Ashdod, and about 21 people aboard were detained.
Efforts to reach Gaza by sea long pre-date the current war.
The defining moment came in May 2010, when Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara, part of the first Freedom Flotilla, killing nine Turkish activists and seizing all six vessels. The incident damaged Israeli-Turkish relations for years.
Subsequent flotillas in 2011, 2012, 2015, and 2018 were all intercepted and towed to Ashdod, with passengers detained or deported and cargo confiscated. None of them succeeded in establishing a sustained humanitarian corridor.
Aboard the Sherine and the Omar Al-Mukhtar, activists now sleep on deck in shifts, keeping an eye on the skies. Satellite-phone messages show them coordinating lookout duties and rehearsing emergency procedures in case of interception.
“We have been targeted by drones before; governments now need to join us on the water, not just in statements,” Adler told a shore-based news conference. “If we can keep this voyage peaceful, if enough eyes stay fixed on us, we might finally open that blue-water corridor to Gaza.”
For now, the Sumud Flotilla’s bows point east. Israel’s navy has vowed it will not allow the boats to dock in Gaza. Spain and Italy insist their vessels are present only for rescue and humanitarian safety and not as armed escorts.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 2 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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