New Freedom Flotilla aid ship sets sail for Gaza, month after attack off Malta
The Conscience was bombed just off Malta on May 2
A Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship has set sail from Catania to break the Israeli siege of Gaza and deliver food aid, a month after another ship was bombed by drones off Malta as it prepared for a similar journey.
The Madleen, a converted yacht, is carrying humanitarian aid and international human rights activists "in direct defiance of Israel’s illegal and genocidal blockade," the international NGO said in Catania on Sunday.
Artwork on the bow of the Madleen. Photo Tan SafiNamed in 2014 after Gaza’s first and only fisherwoman Madleen "symbolises the unyielding spirit of Palestinian resilience and the growing global resistance to Israel’s use of collective punishment and deliberate starvation policies," it added.
Another of the NGO's ships, the Conscience, was bombed by two drones in international waters just off Malta on May 2. It was at anchor waiting to embark international activists. The ship suffered bow damage and was towed to Libya after the Maltese government refused it permission to enter Maltese waters, although it offered to help in repairs at sea.
The Conscience suffered bow damage when it was bombed off Malta on May 2. Photo: Freedom Coalition Flotilla.The Freedom Flotilla blamed Israel for the attack. Israel did not comment.
On board the Madleen are volunteers from several countries including MEP Rima Hassan, and climate justice activist Greta Thunberg.
Food aid includes baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children's prosthetics.
The NGO recalled that 15 years ago Israeli troops stormed another of its ships on a similar mission - the Mavi Marmara. Ten humanitarian volunteers were killed.
"Despite the risks, we believe that direct, civil resistance still matters —that active solidarity, can shift the moral compass of the world. That is why Madleen sails," the NGO said.
It insisted that it was on a peaceful act of civil resistance and its volunteers are unarmed.