By Juan Cole / Informed Comment
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Anadolu Agency reports that the humanitarian aid ship, the “Madeleine,” set out for Gaza on Sunday from Catania in Sicily, in a bid to break the food and aid blockade imposed on the Strip by Israel. A crowd of supporters gathered at the port with Palestinian flags to encourage the 12-person crew. The mission is sponsored by the Freedom Flotilla organization.
The crew includes Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg, Rima Hassan (a French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament), Irish artist and filmmaker Liam Cunningham, Jewish activist Zohar Chamberlain Regev, and retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright, and Irish actor Liam Cunningham, who played Davos Seaworth (the adviser to Stannis Baratheon) in the HBO series Game of Thrones.
Before the launch, Ms. Thunberg addressed a press conference, saying that the aid ship sought to break the blockade of Gaza symbolically.
“Our governments and the international community are failing to uphold human dignity. They contribute to the impunity of those responsible for ecological and human genocide. That leaves us as the only adults in the room.”
She continued: “Regardless of the difficulties we face, we must keep trying—because the moment we stop is the moment we lose our humanity. As dangerous as this mission is, it pales in comparison to the danger of global silence in the face of a live-broadcast genocide.”
She told the reporters present, “We’re counting on you to use your voices, your platforms, and every tool you have to protect humanity, defend human rights, and stand on the right side of history.”
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports:
“On 19 May, after almost 80 days of a full aid blockade on the entry of aid and any other supplies into Gaza, including food, medicine and fuel, the Israeli authorities allowed the UN to temporarily resume the delivery of limited aid into Gaza. Between 19 and 27 May, the UN submitted 900 truckloads for Israeli approval, of which about 800 were cleared and just over 500 could be offloaded on the Israeli side of Kerem Shalom crossing. Humanitarian organizations have been able to collect only about 200 truckloads on the Palestinian side of the crossing due to insecurity and restricted access.”
Thousands of cases of severe malnutrition has been found in the Palestinian population of Gaza by health workers.
Madeleine‘s predecessor, al-Damir (Conscience), was damaged by a drone strike off Malta on May 2, which The Times of Malta attributed to Israel.
In 2010, Israeli commandos murdered 10 unarmed activists on the Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt sponsored by the Freedom Flotilla to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza, which has been in place since 2007 — though its severity in the past two years hase been unprecedented.
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Juan Cole
Juan Cole, a TomDispatch regular, is the Richard P. Mitchell collegiate professor of history at the University of Michigan. He is the author of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation From the Persian and Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires. His latest book is Peace Movements in Islam. His award-winning blog is Informed Comment. He is also a non-resident Fellow of the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies in Doha and of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN).