To set sail again and again and again until Gaza is free: Huwaida Arraf on the Freedom Flotilla Coalition

Mada

8 hours ago

In recent weeks, the journey of the Madleen, a small boat loaded with aid and crewed by a number of activists and politicians, captured the attention of the world. On board was celebrity, in the form of crew members like Greta Thunberg, but also political heft, as European Parliament member Rima Hassan was among those on board.
The journey, mostly broadcast on Instagram, attracted the attention of thousands as the situation in Gaza became increasingly dire due to Israel's blockade on aid and then the Occupation's subsequent attacks on people coming to the distribution centers run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a shady organization with ties to the American and Israeli military and intelligence.
The boat was meant to be a challenge to the blockade, but its members knew that they would likely be intercepted in international waters, having pre-recorded messages urging various forms of political action to end the genocide to be broadcast once their boat was detained.
And on June 9, that interception came to pass. Israeli quadcopters surrounded the boat. Communications were jammed. And the Madleen was illegally boarded by Israeli forces while it was in international waters, exactly 110 nautical miles from Gaza, according to a Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) statement. The boat was seized and the volunteers were arrested, the statement added.
Eight of the people on board the Madleen were taken to Givon detention center in the city of Ramla after they refused to sign deportation papers, according to a statement published on June 10 by the FFC. Israeli authorities forced the ship's other four crew members to return to their home countries.
Two of the arrested volunteers went on a hunger strike and were moved to solitary confinement by Israeli authorities. Brazilian activist Thiago Avila was moved to Ayalon Prison, while Hassan was taken to Neve Tirza Prison before the authorities brought her to Givon prison. Avila was released on Tuesday and Hassan on Thursday.
As of Saturday, three crew members remain in Israeli custody: Marco van Rennes, Pascal Maurieras and journalist Yanis Mhamdi.
While the saga of the Madleen is not yet over, it already sits within the nearly twenty years of efforts of what has become the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a group of 15 international campaigns, to challenge the siege Israel has imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2006 — and one of several ongoing activist initiatives to break the blockade Israel further tightened to genocidal levels in March this year.
The Madleen's immediate predecessor, The Conscience, another ship carrying volunteers and aid, was attacked by Israeli drones in international waters near Malta in May, causing a fire on the boat that was carrying 12 crew members and four civilians. And that history stretches much farther back to the infamous Mavi Marmara, one of eight ships that set sail from Turkey in 2010 that became a site of violence when Israeli commandos forced their way onto the ship and, when met with resistance by the crew, opened fire, killing nine Turkish nationals immediately with one dying years later from his injuries. In the wake of the killings, Turkey severed diplomatic ties with Israel.
To better understand this history, Mada Masr spoke with Huwaida Arraf, a human rights attorney and an organizer of voyages to challenge the blockade since 2008. The conversation touched on how Arraf understands what was at stake in the Madleen's voyage but also how the organization has come to understand what it would truly mean to 'break the siege' from its experience in arriving in Gaza in 2008 to its repeated interceptions in the decades since. Already, Arraf says, the next voyage is being planned, as she and her group know that they must set sail again and again until Gaza is free.
The interview has been lightly edited for clarity and accuracy.
MM: Can you tell us a bit about the work you've done with the International Committee to Break the Siege on the Gaza Strip, one of the groups that would later join the Freedom Flotilla Coalition?
In 2008, we had five successful sea missions that reached Gaza. When we first sailed in 2008, we wanted to break the siege and we wanted to encourage others to do the same. Then, after Israel launched operation Cast Lead in the same year, we tried to send a small yacht called The Dignity. Israel damaged it at sea — we had to be rescued by the Lebanese coast guard. We tried to go again with another emergency boat, and Israel almost sank that one. We tried to go again a few months later, and Israel, again, commandeered the boat, arrested everyone. This was three times now, and we did not get in.
We decided to go bigger and try to organize a big flotilla. A Turkish campaign joined, there was a Greek campaign, an Italian campaign, a Swedish campaign. I'm forgetting how many there were when we first came together as the FFC. In May 2010, we finally had eight ships, 700 people and 10,000 tons of aid and we set out toward Gaza.
But Israel launched a lethal attack on May 31 and killed nine people, one other was put in a coma for five years and later died as a result of his injuries.
We didn't let that stop us. The next year we organized an even bigger flotilla, more people wanted to join. But Israel started playing this bureaucratic sabotage game where it was threatening insurance companies so that they would not insure us, putting pressure on countries not to let us leave from their ports. In 2011, we were planning to leave from different ports in Greece, but we weren't able to disembark because Greek authorities stopped us.
In 2012, I left the coalition for personal and strategic reasons, but we sent a lot of boats between 2012 and 2018. I rejoined in 2023.
MM: What did the freedom flotilla intend to achieve with the Madleen's voyage, and what, in the end, do you think it achieved?
HA: We always had the goal of breaking the siege of Gaza. It is an illegal siege, and the fact that states are tolerating, even respecting and assisting Israel in maintaining this illegal siege is unacceptable.
Of course, things changed and became dramatically worse after October 2023. Israel is now using its siege — used since 2006 as a way to punish the civilian population of Gaza — as part of this campaign to really destroy the Palestinian people, cutting off food, water and electricity, and pushing people out of their homes.
Now more than ever, it is obvious that what is happening is a genocide and the world needs to do something about it. In addition to all the protests around the world, we need to directly confront Israel, and so we started organizing.
Last year, we were supposed to leave from Istanbul, but we had a lot of bureaucratic delays, unfortunately. We had three big boats, including one cargo ship with 5,000 tons of aid, and we were highlighting the fact that Israel, a country on trial for genocide, should not be able to dictate, to decide, if aid can get to the people that it is actively exterminating. So that is what we wanted to challenge with carrying life-saving aid.
At the same time and as always, we said 'this isn't just about aid.' For me, as a Palestinian, this is very important — not just talk about getting aid to people that is needed right now, but that Palestine is not a charity case. It is about really breaking the siege and Israel's illegal control, because Palestinians deserve freedom.
After the bureaucratic warfare that stopped our flotilla from leaving last year, we continued to work and finally, in May, we were ready to go with one of the three ships that we had last year. The night before it was supposed to leave, Israel bombed it.
We did not let that stop us, of course, and we set to work on preparing the Madleen, and the Madleen left with the same goal: getting to Gaza, distributing the small amount of aid and getting more boats to follow, because there was no way this boat or a hundred more boats like it could carry all the aid that Gaza needs.
As for what it achieved, I think it managed to inspire a lot of people into believing that we can do something. Sometimes we feel like, 'what can I do? The situation is horrible and I am just one person,' but this was 12 people, at sea, going to confront the Israeli military.
I don't want to suggest that people aren't doing anything. People are of course doing so much in their own home countries and it is important to keep pressuring our local governments in any way we can because they are enabling Israel.
But at the same time, this is part of that mobilization, to go and stand up to this genocidal entity, to directly confront them and say: this blockade is illegal and we do not respect it; we are insisting on going through.' The Madleen, I think, sparked that hope, the belief, the imagination.
MM: How do you see this initiative compared to previous ones, such as in 2010 or those from 2008?
HA: I don't think a lot changed except for the context. In 2008 and even in 2010, we always knew that Israel likes to represent itself as the victim, 'defending' itself, as it is always saying. So we know that Israel is very concerned about its image. We thought that if we had certain media attention with us, Israel would be careful or not be so willing to kill internationals.
We always knew attention can help keep you safe, not 100 percent, but it helps. It was much easier to get social media attention this time, given how present people are online and because of the horror of what is happening in Gaza.
But this time, people really didn't necessarily believe that [attention would keep them safe]. Israel killed the World Central Kitchen staff — it does not care because nobody is holding Israel accountable. You can argue that, strategically, a state would not want to do this, but Israel is not really acting like a rational actor.
We realized that we probably can't rely on past experience [completely] just because of the impunity that Israel has become so used to — because of just the level of violence, the extent to which the violence has been multiplied.
In the end, what went out after hours and hours of discussions and disagreements is that we have to do something, and there are people who know the risks and are willing to take them.
Before people got on The Conscience in May, we made sure they knew of the risks — we were like 'look, you need to give us a copy of your will so that you know you may get killed,' which we always told people, but we wanted them to understand the danger was magnified much more.
MM: What do you think helped you reach Gaza five times in 2008?
HA: With that first mission, we didn't know that it was going to work, but we wanted to create a lose-lose situation for Israel.
It was either we got to Gaza and we won in making it to Gaza, or we force them into a situation where they took over our boat by force.
Back in 2008, Israel was saying that Hamas controls Gaza. I mean, it was a lot of the same stuff: 'this blockade is to prevent Hamas from getting weapons.' It is a security thing.' So we had two fishing boats, like the Madleen, and we had 44 people from 17 different countries. We said that we are not a security threat, so if you block us from getting in you have to forcefully sink us, kill us, or arrest us and then be clear that it is not about security, because what kind of security threat are we? We had a parliamentarian with us, a doctor, an artist and a journalist.
So we wanted to expose that — either we make it, or we force you to expose to the world that you are just lying, that this isn't about security, that it is about punishing the Palestinian people, that this is about collective punishment, that this is unlawful.
We hoped that the world would not tolerate Israel continuing to do this once it was exposed that it is not about security.
But this much has been exposed. There is a deadly blockade that we know is not about security. Starving children is not security, but still, still states do nothing. Still, states tolerate Israel doing this.
So that was a huge shock, I guess. Maybe a naive shock back then.
And now I think a lot of it is exposed. People are horrified by what Israel is doing. People are outraged and even states talk about the fact that this is not about security, but they don't do anything. They don't sanction Israel. So again, it's like this naive shock that we can reach this level of livestream genocide and announced deliberate starvation and still countries do nothing.
So, now, we are organizing this challenge to Israel, but also challenging our governments who are not only not putting out their own aid and also don't help us, but sometimes actually work with Israel to stop us, like the bureaucratic sabotage that happened. Turkey speaks so well of Palestinian rights and whatnot, but they stopped our boats from leaving. So we are highlighting the responsibility of states in our actions now.
In 2008, we really didn't think we would get there. We planned for almost every scenario, like they might drown us. They might sabotage us in this way, arrest us or just kill us, but we didn't actually plan for the scenario of making it to Gaza, because we did not think we were getting to Gaza, and Israel was threatening us until the last minute.
But we just kept sailing, and, at some point, we reached Gaza's territorial waters, and they did not interfere. Really, that was not the scenario we had planned for, but we made it and the reception was so incredible. People were just grateful and happy and thinking we had broken the siege.
But we knew that we had not broken it. We just overcame the blockade once. We had to keep doing it, keep going back and forth until you break the siege.
We promised the people of Gaza that we were going to keep doing this until we break the siege, and we have kept sailing since, but we haven't really broken it yet. It is in that spirit, that context with that history that we continue to sail. It is so much more necessary now, the role of states' complicity is so much more obvious: that you can see and agree even that what Israel is doing is illegal, and still really won't do anything about it: that is why people have to act.
MM: What are the coalition's next steps and what are the possibilities for the future?
HA: We are already planning another one. It is not easy to get and manage boats but we are planning another one and hopefully it can be bigger. Our hope is that more people will be mobilizing to join us.
Keep watching the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and let's see what the next one brings. I don't know if it will be the thousands that we are dreaming of, even the hundreds, but hopefully it will have the support and the backing of many more people. Hopefully, eventually, states will come around.
You know there was a saying I used to repeat all the time, I think it was from Gandhi who said 'when the people lead, the leaders will follow,' and hopefully the leaders will follow what global civil society is saying, so it is with that that we move forward.