“There is no Palestinian who can see what is happening in Gaza and not give the best that Israel stops the genocide“. Who speaks like this is the HispanoPalestino activist Saif Abukeshek, one of the coordinators of the Global Sumud Flotilla,” the greatest attempt to break the illegal Israeli siege over Gaza “that will sail from Spain this Sunday, August 31. Abukeshek himself will embark on one of the many ships that will leave the port of Barcelona to meet with others on September 4, where They will seek to reach Gaza.
The idea of organizing this great flotilla emerged in June. As Abukeshek recalls, who attends to El HuffPost On the phone, that month tried to break the blockade “by three ways, earth, sea and air, with the MADLEEN, the Global March to Gaza and the convoy of North Africa”. “The organizers of the three spaces have coordinated and said: You have to keep climbing, pressing. Let’s go now together on one way, the sea“, details the activist. The main risk, again, is that Israel inter -cares to the ships, although this time they will be a few.” His reaction – explains Abukeshek – will depend on the pressure made internationally. The way in which Israel acts always responds to the complicity of governments and states. Now it will be on the same line. It will depend on political pressure, whether governments do their job. We will do ours, and if we do it is because Governments have failed in their main responsibility, protect people“.
Despite the usual response of Israel, which blocks access and the arrival of help to Gaza, Saif Abukeshek and his companions are able to reach the strip. “If we have no hope, we would not have organized all this. The moment of failure comes when hope is lost.”says the activist, who insists: “Israel is not going to stop the genocide until it begins to have a cost. If you still have diplomatic, political or commercial relations with other governments, if it has no consequences, you will not see any reason to end the occupation.”
Attempts to get to Gaza through the Mediterranean Sea, when For the first time two fishing ships loaded with humanitarian aid, the Liberty and the Free Gaza, were able to dock in the strip after in 2007 Israel, but also Egypt, block access to Gaza by land, sea and air. In one of the ships, the human rights activist born and raised in Khan Younis Musheir El-Farra was traveling. “For the first time in my life, I went to Gaza without being humiliated, without having to ask Israel permission. We did it. We finally achieve it. And now others must join us and do it too,” he said after the success of the journey. Last October 2023, El-Farra was back in Khan Younis and witnessed an Israeli bombing to a residential block that killed 16 of his relatives. “Every night I hear those screams, those regrets,”.
From that successful rupture of the naval block, only four more trips had the same result. None more. Israel did not allow any other ship to reach the strip. In 2010, the Israeli army assaulted the Fleeta de la Libertad and murdered a dozen activists from the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara. Fifteen years later, the Benjamin Netanyahu government continues with the sending of elite teams of the Israeli military forces to prevent the arrival of more ships. The last attempts were those of the Conscience ships in May, the MADLEEN in June and the Handala in July. While the first was attacked by drones, Israel assaulted the last two, arrested his crew and deported them ,.
Toribio was traveling aboard the Madleen next to activist Greta Thunberg, who will also travel in one of the ships that will come out this weekend. Thunberg is also part of the Global Sumud Flotilla Steering Committee, “helping to guide the mission and disseminate its message of non -violent resistance, solidarity and Palestinian liberation.”
The Global Sumud Flotilla will sail a few days after the UN officially declared. According to the United Nations, only in July more than 12,000 children with acute malnutrition were identified. The Israel government, meanwhile, intensifies its attacks. After threatening with a definitive assault on the city of Gaza, this week the entire world could see how Israel attacked the Nasser hospital twice, killing at least 20 people, five of them journalists. The International Criminal Court maintains Activates the arrest warrant against Israeli prime minister for possible crimes of war and humanity..
