Tunisia flotilla eager to join Global Sumud mission to break Gaza siege

Tunis, Tunisia – At 61 Station Street, downtown Tunis, volunteers are engaged receiving and documenting donations for the Maghreb Sumud Flotilla – 1 of 4 organising groups of the Global Sumud Flotilla, aiming to interruption Israel’s siege connected Gaza.

The archetypal program was for the boats to acceptable sail from Tunis connected Thursday. But the Tunisian boats volition person to hold until the Spanish flotilla – led by, among others, the Swedish clime activistic Greta Thunberg – that sets disconnected from Barcelona connected Monday arrives, having been delayed arsenic a effect of a storm.

Recommended Stories

• list 1 of 3Egypt, Qatar condemn Netanyahu remarks connected displacing Palestinians successful Gaza
• list 2 of 3Israeli forces termination Palestinian successful occupied West Bank arsenic unit surges
• list 3 of 3UN rights main urges US to retreat sanctions connected Palestinian NGOs

Another flotilla leaving from Sicily is expected to articulation the Tunisian 1 connected Sunday, with each the vessels past departing unneurotic towards the eastbound Mediterranean.

On committee the vessels volition beryllium doctors, activists, convoy organisers, lawyers and societal media influencers. Inside the holds: cardboard boxes afloat of medicine and babe beverage – and immoderate touching messages and gifts from Tunisian children to their counterparts successful Gaza.

All 7 flotillas that person acceptable sail to Gaza since 2010 person been either intercepted oregon attacked by the Israeli service earlier adjacent reaching Gaza’s territorial waters. On May 2, the vessel Conscience was struck doubly by Israeli equipped drones erstwhile it was conscionable 25 kilometres (16 miles) distant from the shores of Malta.

Raring to go

Thorough preparations for the flotilla are ongoing successful galore Tunisian cities, including Tunis, Bizerte, Beja, Sousse, Sfax and Gabes. For galore of the volunteers astatine enactment successful Tunisia’s donation centres, their ties to Gaza tally deep, and galore person felt helpless having watched astir 2 years of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, sidesplitting much than 62,000 Palestinians.

Many present retrieve section governmental activistic Hatem Laayouni’s joining efforts to interruption the Israeli siege of Gaza connected committee the Handala ngo successful July, arsenic good arsenic the Tunisian-led Sumud convoy that attempted to get done the erstwhile month.

Both attempts look to person made Gaza consciousness wrong scope for galore present volunteering to proviso and sail wrong the latest flotilla. “Tunisians nary longer deliberation Palestine is acold away. Palestine is close. It’s decidedly not acold away,” says a unpaid who goes by the sanction Sahraoui.

Volunteers from crossed Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States are taking part, and cognize that they person nary clip to waste, peculiarly arsenic Gaza is present officially successful a famine.

The squad down the Maghreb flotilla person worked quickly. On August 22, the organising committee of the flotilla launched a fundraising run and a telephone for in-kind donations. Ten days later, the vessels were bought.

“I can’t stock the fig of boats due to the fact that it’s confidential information, but we’re bully erstwhile it comes to boats,” Ghassan Boughdiri, a subordinate of the organising committee, told Al Jazeera, adding, “We person the nonstop fig we need.”

Boughdiri besides confirmed that the names and fig of participants would beryllium communicated erstwhile the flotilla is acceptable to sail.

Donations

Large amounts of donations, specified arsenic medicine and babe milk, person already been collected and packed into cardboard boxes, with organisers acceptable to supply much erstwhile Israel lifts its blockade.

With astir of the mentation enactment done, lone the finishing touches remain: equipping the vessels with wi-fi, cameras, beingness jackets and different information tools.

And for this, Tunisians proceed to articulation agelong queues astatine Station Street to donate wealth and immoderate different gifts they can.

“The peculiar happening astir this run is the fig of radical who showed up to springiness donations,” said Boughdiri. “We’ve had radical bringing 5 and 10 dinars [$1.70 to $3.40]. If your day’s wage is 20 dinars [$6.80], those 5 dinars are truthful precious for us. It shows we’ve managed to enactment collectively to assistance our radical successful Gaza.”

With enactment for the flotilla gathering steam astir the world, and much vessels announcing their participation, determination is anticipation that the satellite volition beryllium forced to enactment if Israel attempts to violently halt the boats.

But adjacent though sending humanitarian assistance connected flotillas to situation zones is approved by planetary law, it is inactive much apt that Israel volition edifice to violence.

“This is the largest assistance flotilla to Gaza ever,” said Sahraoui. “No akin ngo has been launched before. So we don’t truly cognize however they’ll respond. I anticipation we bash scope Gaza eventually.”