BARCELONA — A flotilla of boats headed for Gaza carrying 350 pro-Palestinian activists — together with local weather change campaigner Greta Thunberg — has departed from Barcelona.
Round 20 vessels displaying Palestinian flags left the Spanish port at 19:00 native time on Monday, stocked with medical and meals provides.
The flotilla first tried to set sail on Sunday, however needed to return to port on account of stormy climate.
The purpose of the mission is to “break Israel’s unlawful siege on Gaza”, the organisers stated — although a earlier try to achieve Gaza by sea was intercepted by Israeli forces.
The International Sumud Flotilla Mission plans to launch in two waves — the primary from Barcelona and the second from Tunis on 4 September.
Activists hope the boats will converge within the Mediterranean earlier than crusing in the direction of Gaza, a visit that’s estimated to take seven or eight days.
“We’re crusing once more to interrupt the siege and open up a humanitarian hall,” Thunberg stated in a video message.
Punk singer Bob Vylan — who provoked controversy for main a chant of “demise to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]” at Glastonbury — spoke on the flotilla’s departure on Sunday.
He referred to as the activists as “courageous people” who had been “making an attempt to do what ought to have been finished by authorities intervention a very long time in the past”.
Israeli authorities have characterised a earlier try to sail help to Gaza as a publicity stunt that supplied no actual humanitarian help.
In March, Israel launched a virtually three-month whole blockade on items getting into Gaza, earlier than permitting a restricted quantity of products again into the territory in late-Could following worldwide strain. a UN-backed physique has since declared there’s a famine in elements of Gaza.
Israel has since tried to impose its personal distribution system by means of the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Basis, which has been criticised by help businesses.
In June, a yacht carrying Thunberg and a number of other different activists — and a symbolic quantity of humanitarian help — was intercepted by Israeli forces because it tried to achieve Gaza.
Israeli authorities escorted the activists to the port of Ashdod earlier than deporting them from the nation.
In 2010, Israeli commandos killed 10 folks after they boarded Turkish ship Mavi Marmara which was main an help flotilla in the direction of Gaza. — BBC
