A flotilla of ships scheduled to set off for the Gaza Strip on Friday to bring aid to Palestinians has become stranded in Turkey due to administrative roadblocks as Israel applied political pressure to prevent the trip, according to organizers.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said Israel was pressuring the Republic of Guinea-Bissau to remove the flag from its lead ship, the Akdeniz, triggering a request for additional inspection by the flag state.
Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army colonel and State Department official and one of the flotilla’s organizers, said the ship had passed all inspections in Turkey and was ready to set sail.
The further controls demanded by Guinea-Bissau were “a political game by Israel” to prevent the departure of the three-ship convoy with 5,000 tons of aid and more than 500 participants from 40 countries on board.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has twice ordered unhindered access for aid to Gaza as part of interim measures to prevent the crime of genocide – which Israel is accused of in a case brought by South Africa.
But an Israeli blockade is restricting UN-coordinated food convoys’ access to the war-torn enclave as famine threatens.
Should Guinea-Bissau deny the permit, Wright said, Israel and its ally the United States would try to put pressure on the country under which they would try to register the ship.
“What happens if mom dies?”
Although the humanitarian importance of the flotilla cannot be overstated, organizers say its main goal is to “break the siege” of the Gaza Strip by defying a blockade implemented in 2007 and since Hamas’ October 7 attack was tightened.
The mission involves great personal risk for the participants – activists, veterans, media representatives and people from all walks of life who have voluntarily joined the grassroots initiative.
Palestinian-American activist and international lawyer Huwaida Arraf left behind her nine-year-old daughter and 11-year-old son to board the Freedom Flotilla, which is heading to the Gaza Strip to bring aid to Palestinians and an Israeli escape Blocking humanitarian access to the war-torn enclave.
In May 2010, the six-ship Freedom Flotilla I was intercepted by the Israeli Navy, with Israeli commandos boarding the Turkish lead ship Mavi Marmara, opening fire and killing nine activists.
But the volunteers on board are still determined today.
“My husband told me recently that my daughter asked him, ‘What happens if mom dies?’ Would it be okay if this helped people?’” Arraf says.
“It’s sad that she has to think about it, but that’s the world we live in and that’s definitely not the world I want to pass on to them.”
Arraf, co-founder of the non-violent International Solidarity Movement (ISM), says the flotilla’s main goal is to “challenge the political realities that leave Palestinians in need of aid” by breaking the blockade that began in 2007 and has worsened since October 7th.
Huwaida Arraf aboard the Akdeniz, a ship that is part of the flotilla transporting aid from Turkey to Gaza [Dilara Senkaya/Reuters]
Arraf, who has taken part in previous flotillas to Gaza, argues that breaking an illegal blockade cannot be unlawful.
“We will not come close to Israeli territorial waters, so they have no right to intercept us [or harm us]“says the lawyer.
“We’re trying to keep all eyes on the flotilla to make sure the world and Israel know we’re coming so they can’t fire a missile at us and say it was unintentional.”
Israel has said the naval blockade is necessary to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas and other militants in the Gaza Strip. Currently, the Gaza Strip is raging in a relentless war in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7.
Just weeks ago, seven World Central Kitchen aid workers were killed in Israeli strikes, one of the clearest examples of the dangers of providing humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The Israeli military said the multiple attacks that killed WCK employees on April 1 were a “mistake.”
Since October 2023, more than 200 humanitarian workers have been killed in Gaza, making it the most dangerous place in the world to be a humanitarian worker.
“I couldn’t turn away”
Another mother on board is Wynd Kaufmyn, a retired Jewish-American university engineering lecturer who takes the mission “very seriously” but expects to “come back in one piece.”
Her daughter, Kaufmyn tells Al Jazeera, lost her father four years ago and she didn’t want her to grieve again.
“But I think of the people in Gaza who have all lost their families.
They are hungry, they are suffering and I am doing what I think is best to stop this genocide,” says the 66-year-old.
“We know the possibility exists [the Israeli military] “We will board and take control of the ship to deport ourselves, and we do not expect them to treat us gently,” she continues.
“It’s a little scary, but I know I have to be here.”
Wynd Kaufmyn, a retired Jewish-American university engineering lecturer, has joined the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza [Courtesy: Wynd Kaufmyn]
Participants were required to complete non-violent training before departure in order to respond peacefully to any scenario.
Kaufmyn’s pro-Palestinian activism has already come at great personal cost. She grew up in the Jewish community of Detroit, Michigan, where support for Israel is strong.
In 2002, after the second Intifada, Kaufmyn decided to stop ignoring the issue of Palestine and traveled to the region.
“I saw with my own eyes what was going on and I couldn’t turn away,” she says.
She took the path of activism that made her a “proud anti-Zionist Jew,” but her choice opened a rift with her now-deceased parents and her favorite uncle, as well as her two sisters.
“I called my twin sister two nights ago because I wanted to go on this trip,” says Kaufmyn, referring to her decision to join the Freedom Flotilla.
“She said she didn’t understand why I wanted to destroy Israel.”
Her sister’s rebuke was painful and a stark reminder of the polarizing narrative surrounding the war in Gaza that is dividing the United States.
“I will try to stop a genocide and bring food to starving people. This has nothing to do with the destruction of anyone,” Kaufmyn argues.
“I come from a Jewish background and when we say ‘Never again’, it means ‘Never again’ for everyone.”
Diplomatic tensions
Diplomatic efforts by Western governments to prevent the flotilla from leaving, originally scheduled for mid-April, included attempts to pressure Turkey to refuse permission to leave the port, organizers say.
The US State Department’s counterterrorism coordinator, Ambassador Elizabeth Richard, was in Ankara this week. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier also traveled to the Turkish capital for a three-day visit.
Wright, who resigned from her State Department post in protest at the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, tells Al Jazeera that the governments of the US, UK and Germany pressured Turkey to block the resignation.
“For some reason these governments believe they have to protect Israel,” she says. “There is a long-term debt from 75 years ago and for the US there is a sustained campaign by Zionists and other supporters of the State of Israel” to maintain US government support.
At a meeting with Steinmeier on Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeated his accusation that the West is ignoring the suffering of the civilian population in Gaza.
“We do not intend to harm any Israeli, we simply want to highlight the fact that Israel is still committing genocide and that the US is cooperating,” Wright said.