‘We agreed we have to unite:’ Largest ever flotilla sets sail to break Israel’s siege on Gaza

A new flotilla of over 50 ships — the largest yet — is to set sail from Barcelona to the Gaza Strip on August 31, members of the steering committee said at a press conference from the port ahead of their departure.

The flotilla is the latest in a chain of activist-organized groups that have set sail since the beginning of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, seeking to break the siege on Palestinians in the coastal enclave.

It builds on a nearly two-decade continuum of similar voyages that have attempted to break Israel’s blockade, of which only one has ever managed to reach Gaza’s coast. Other vessels have been intercepted and compounded by Israel’s navy, while most activists on board have been deported. In 2010, Israel killed nine people aboard a ship that had set sail from Turkey. 

This time, the flotilla will include “more boats than all boats combined that tried to set sail to Gaza,” Thiago Avila, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla steering committee, said at the Sunday press conference. 

Israel arrested Avila in June 2025 alongside other activists who had set sail to Gaza aboard the Madleen from Catania, Italy.

According to Yasmine Acar, another steering committee member who was also on board the Madleen, the maritime mission includes delegations from 44 countries, with 30,000 people registered to take part. Acar said the boats will be sailing from Barcelona, but they will also be joined by boats from Greece, Italy and Tunisia.

The fleet brings together multiple groups, including the Sumud Nusantara initiative launched from Malaysia and eight other Southeast Asian countries.

The boats will carry the names of Palestinian historical cities, according to Seif Abukeshek, a third steering committee member. While they will also carry aid, the primary purpose of the action is one of solidarity, and not an act of charity, activist Greta Thunberg said at the presser.

Abukeshek was one of the coordinators of the Global March to Gaza, another movement that sought to break the siege in June by a land march starting from Cairo and which was violently dispersed by security personnel in Ismailia. Abukeshek was arrested in Egypt, alongside other participants who came to join the march. He was released shortly after.

He said plans for the current flotilla mission emerged from prior activist efforts to break the siege, including the third initiative, the Sumud Convoy, which gathered participants from Tunisia to travel across Libya to Egypt in parallel to the global march starting in Cairo.

“The decision to start this mission was taken on June 22, after coming back from three missions — the Global March to Gaza, the Sumud Convoy and the Madleen. The three movements tried to break the siege in three different ways and then, we agreed that we have to unite,” Abukeshek said.

The decision to set sail from Barcelona is related to the support they have gotten from the municipality there, Abukeshek said.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a group of 15 international campaigns, has launched multiple sea missions to challenge the siege Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2006.

In a 2008 voyage, the Free Gaza Movement managed to reach the shores of the strip with two boats carrying aid and provided safe passage on board for injured Palestinians to get medical treatment outside of Gaza.

Later missions have never reached the shores of Gaza, however. In its deadliest attack on the flotillas, Israeli forces attacked a fleet of eight ships that had set sail to Gaza in 2010, killing nine activists immediately, while a tenth later died of his injuries.

In other instances, the Israeli navy has intercepted ships in international waters, an act activists say constitutes piracy. After interception, the navy has forced them to sail to the port of Ashdod, where activists on board would be briefly detained and their boats confiscated.

But the organizations remain resolved to continue their efforts to reach Gaza.

“This is about Palestine, not us,” Abukeshek said in the opening remarks of Sunday’s presser. “I was born in a refugee camp in Palestine where the majority of Palestinians are refugees. The base of the Zionist state is the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. We are not here to save Palestinians or to teach them about non violence. Anyone under occupation should choose how they want to resist.”