Last week CPT watched nervously yet hopefully as the Global Sumud Flotilla edged closer to Gaza. This fleet of 42 ships carried around 450 activists from around the world in an act of nonviolent resistance. It aimed to break the siege of Gaza, bearing the world’s hopes for a free Palestine.
For 17 years Israel has carried out an illegal siege on Gaza. In the last two years, Israel has escalated it’s genocide against the Palestinian people inducing a famine while bombing shelters, hospitals, mosques, churches and schools. While the genocide has been carried out, governments have yet to take meaningful action to stop it. Despite this inaction, people around the world have risen up to break the siege and take action to materially impact government’s complicity in the genocide.
Throughout the Sumud’s journey, crew members faced sabotage, harassment and intimidation campaigns, and threats of bombardment – yet they continued, determined to break the siege, risking their lives and taking action where governments have failed. Boats had already been targeted and surveilled by Israeli and European drones, but the crew remained determined to sail forward, denouncing Israel’s campaign of genocide in Gaza and the complicity of enabling states who have militarily funded Israel, refused to condemn its actions, or remained politically inactive.
On 1 October, Israeli forces illegally intercepted the civil fleet in international waters. Many crewmembers are still being held captive by Israel, where reports emerge that they are denied access to their lawyers, and are facing pressure to sign confessions to having entered Israel illegally. Some of them have launched a hunger strike, refusing to recognise the authority of Israel’s jurisdiction over them. Those who have been released speak of the torture and humiliation to which Israeli forces have subjected those captured.
The interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla prompted emergency demonstrations in cities across the globe. “There are friends and comrades on some of these boats, friends and comrades who carry our faith too in the cause of a Free Gaza”, says CPT Aegean Migrant Solidarity. “Our hearts are with them. We promise we will not leave them alone on their courageous voyage. We will work to make sure they return safely to their families and that their goal is achieved – sooner or later.”
At the same time we keep watch on the next round of boats launched by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, expected to reach Palestinian waters in the a few days. CPT has friends from Turtle Island sailing as part of this fleet, bearing Indigenous solidarity in honour of their shared struggle against settler colonialism.
Reporting from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, Mskwaasin Agnew – a Cree and Dene Woman from Salt River First Nation – shares
“The state of Canada is an occupation, a settler colony that displaced our people from our traditional territories onto reserves. They uproot and destroy the Land and water in the name of economic development and resource extraction. We live under the Indian Act, the blueprint for Israeli apartheid…
Our joined liberation struggle as Indigenous people, our survival hinges on the resistance spirit within us all. The Canadian government is funding a genocide. The same state that persecuted our grandparents and ancestors. The same state that denies dignity and personhood to the people I see everyday. This is our duty. This is our responsibility, our greatest honour. Palestine will be free.”
CPT Colombia calls our attention to the number of people from the Global South joining solidarity flotillas:
“The fact that more and more people from the Global South are joining the Solidarity Flotillas to Gaza breaks with the notion that these non-violent direct actions can only come from the protection of certain privileged passports, or that solidarity must be white, northern, or Eurocentric. The presence of diverse delegations shows that the Palestinian cause speaks to the conscience beyond borders, and that solidarity can and must be embodied through multiple realities, histories, struggles, and territories.
Each Latin American participation and each official pronouncement becomes another step toward building a broader, more plural, and deeply political global solidarity. A solidarity that does not limit itself to watching suffering from afar, but chooses to act, to unsettle, and to challenge structures of power—showing that Palestine is not alone”.
CPT stands in solidarity with all those aboard the flotilla, taking concrete action where their governments have failed to do so. In the words of CPT Colombia, their decision to act “shows that Palestine is not alone, that its resistance echoes across all latitudes, and that it is a shared struggle.”
