This article was originally published in Common Dreams under Creative Commons 3.0 license. Read the original article. Contact: editor@commondreams.org
By Brett Wilkins
Organizers of the Global Sumud Flotilla—the largest-ever activist effort to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza by sea—said Thursday that they will launch a new and bigger mission next month to deliver humanitarian aid to the Palestinian exclave, whose people have suffered from 28 months of genocidal Israeli war and siege.
Global Sumud Flotilla called its spring 2026 mission, which is scheduled to depart from Barcelona on March 29, “a historic escalation in civilian-led maritime action to break the illegal blockade of Gaza.”
“We are sailing again this year. This time, we’re sailing with more boats, and more activists... and we are determined to break this illegal siege on Gaza and show the world that the peace talks are not really peace talks, but the further colonization of Palestinian territories,” organizer Yasmin Acar told South African Broadcasting Corporation News Radio. “We will not stop until the siege is broken.”
Global Sumud Flotilla said: “A primary focus of the 2026 mission is the deployment of a specialized medical fleet. Carrying more than 1,000 healthcare professionals and stocked with lifesaving medicines and equipment, this fleet aims to stabilize Gaza’s healthcare system and support the efforts of local medical teams who have endured two years of genocide.”
Like most of Gaza, the strip’s healthcare infrastructure is in ruins after deliberate targeting of medical facilities and workers by Israeli forces.
Mandla Mandela, grandson of South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela and a past flotilla participant, called the new effort “cause... for those that want to rise and stand for justice and dignity for all.”
Last summer, dozens of boats carrying hundreds of activists from over 40 nations took part in the last Global Sumud Flotilla—sumud means “perseverance” in Arabic—as it attempted to run Israel’s naval blockade and deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid including food, medicines, and baby formula to the starving people of Gaza amid Israel’s genocidal war and siege on the people of the coastal strip.
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Israeli forces intercepted and seized the flotilla vessels in international waters in early October, arresting all aboard the boats and temporarily jailing them in Israel, where some including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg said they were physically and psychologically abused by their captors.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has made numerous attempts to break Israel’s blockade by sea, all of which ended in more or less the same way. In 2010, Israeli forces raided one of the first convoys carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza by sea. The Israeli attackers killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
“We may not have reached Gaza physically,” flotilla activist Susan Abdallah told Al Jazeera Thursday, but “we have reached the people in Gaza.”
“They know that we care, that we will not stop at anything until we actually break the siege,” she added.
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