Freedom flotilla to set sail tomorrow with three scenarios in sight
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A Freedom Flotilla official reveals that it will include three ships, including one cargo ship, a cruise ship, and another smaller boat.
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Workers prepare a ship of Freedom Flotilla Coalition while it anchors at Tuzla seaport in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, April 19, 2024. (AP)
The Freedom Flotilla, a coalition of 12 rights activist groups, is due to sail from a port in Istanbul to Gaza tomorrow to deliver over 5,000 tonnes of humanitarian supplies to the besieged strip.
A Freedom Flotilla official said it will include three ships, including one cargo ship, a cruise ship, and another smaller boat, with around 800 people, including crew, activists, and observers.
In a statement published on X, the coalition said: “We have completed all technical and crewing requirements in order to launch the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza on Friday, April 26, 2024."
The #FreedomFlotilla has completed technical & crewing requirements to launch our emergency mission on Friday April 26. Tons of life-saving aid & 100s of human rights observers to ensure aid gets to Palestinians in Gaza without interference #BreakTheSiegehttps://t.co/BsaXuarocR pic.twitter.com/9FBJBydsJH
— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) April 24, 2024
Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian-American attorney and one of the organizers, said, “We will be going from international waters into Gaza’s territorial waters. We are not entering Israel’s waters and the people of Gaza want us there”.
“We are working diligently to move our boats to a port in Istanbul where the paperwork procedures for hundreds of participants can be completed, to allow for boarding beginning on Friday morning,” the Freedom Flotilla statement noted.
Concerns are being voiced, especially after the last incident back in 2010 when an attempt to break the blockade on Gaza by a flotilla setting sail from Turkey brought a fatal confrontation between the Israeli navy and crew onboard, causing the deaths of nine passengers and sparking a diplomatic crisis between the two countries.
Three scenarios, one outcome
In light of fears of a repeated Israeli attack and specifically amid attacks on aid workers, supporters and crew of the flotilla have received basic training in the basement of an Istanbul hotel in a mock situation of what would happen if the worst does happen.
Given by American expert Lisa Fithian, the six-hour training session in Istanbul includes multiple mock forms of attacks if "Israel" hijacks the ship. Fithian has done this course hundreds of times to teach “peaceful resistance” to groups.
On Monday, Israeli Channel 12 television reported that Shayetet 13, the IOF's elite special forces unit, has amped up training to reportedly raid the flotilla.
With that being said, according to The Fair Observer, the coalition states that there are three scenarios once the ships depart.
The first one: The ships will reach Gaza and accomplish the mission.
The second: The Turkish government stops the ships from leaving Istanbul after it gives in to pressure from the US and "Israel", as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan may fear economic blackmail from the West after having suffered a blow in the most recent local elections.
The third: The ships take off, but the Israelis illegally hijack them in international waters, confiscate the boats and supplies, and then arrest, imprison, and eventually deport their crews.
This happened on several other voyages to Gaza, one of them with deadly consequences. In 2010, the Israeli military stopped a flotilla of six boats in international waters. They boarded the biggest boat, the Mavi Marmara. According to a UN report, the Israelis opened fire with live rounds from a helicopter hovering above the ship and from commando boats along the side of the ship. In a horrific display of force, they killed nine passengers and one more later succumbed to his wounds.
