Photo. France 24

BARCELONA, Aug 31, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - A flotilla carrying humanitarian aid 
and activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, left 
Barcelona on Sunday vowing to try to "break the illegal siege of Gaza", 
organisers said.

Some 20 vessels set off from the port city on Spain's east coast just after 
3.30 pm (1330 GMT) pledging to "open a humanitarian corridor and end the 
ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people", said the Global Sumud Flotilla -
- sumud being the Arabic term for "resilience".

The group defines itself on its website as an independent organisation with 
no affiliation to any government or political party.

The flotilla, flying Palestinian flags, has hundreds of people aboard, among 
them activists from dozens of countries including Irish actor Liam Cunningham 
and Spain's Eduard Fernandez.

Also aboard were European lawmakers and public figures including former 
Barcelona mayor Ada Colau.

The flotilla is expected to arrive at the war-ravaged coastal enclave in mid-
September.

"The question here today is not why we are sailing. This story is not at all 
about the mission that we are about to embark upon," Thunberg told reporters.

"The story here is about Palestine. The story here is how people are being 
deliberately deprived of the very basic means to survive. The story here is 
how the world can be silent," she added.

For Cunningham, "the fact that you guys are here, and the flotilla is 
happening, is an indication of the world's failure to uphold international 
law and humanitarian law, and it is a shameful, shameful period in the 
history of our world. And we should be collectively ashamed."

Organisers said that dozens of other vessels are expected to leave Tunisian 
and other Mediterranean ports on September 4 to join the aid mission.

Activists will also stage simultaneous demonstrations and other protests in 
44 countries "in solidarity with the Palestinian people", Thunberg, part of 
the flotilla's steering committee, wrote on Instagram.

"This will be the largest solidarity mission in history, with more people and 
more boats than all previous attempts combined," Brazilian activist Thiago 
Avila told journalists in Barcelona last week.

"We understand that this is a legal mission under international law," 
Portuguese lawmaker Mariana Mortagua, who will join the mission, told 
journalists in Lisbon last week.

- Previous attempts -

Israel has already blocked two attempts by activists to deliver aid by ship 
to Gaza, in June and July.

In June, 12 activists on board the sailboat Madleen, from France, Germany, 
Brazil, Turkey, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands were intercepted by Israeli 
forces 185 kilometres (115 miles) west of Gaza.

Its passengers, who included Thunberg, were detained and eventually expelled.

In July, 21 activists from 10 countries were intercepted as they tried to 
approach Gaza in another vessel, the Handala.

The Spanish government says it will "deploy all of its diplomatic and 
consular protection to protect our citizens" sailing with the flotilla, the 
country's Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares said Saturday.

Madrid last year recognised Palestine as an independent state.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza has worsened in recent weeks.

The United Nations declared a state of famine in the territory this month, 
warning that 500,000 people face "catastrophic" conditions.

The war in Gaza was triggered by an unprecedented cross-border attack by 
Palestinian group Hamas into Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the 
death of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on 
official data.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,371 Palestinians, most 
of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run 
Gaza. The UN considers those figures reliable.