Starting August 31, dozens of ships from the “Global Sumud Flotilla” will set sail in an effort to break the deadly blockade on Gaza. This exemplary mission, born of indignation and the refusal to remain silent in the face of the ongoing horror in Palestine, far exceeds previous ones in its scale: delegations from 44 different countries will participate, on several dozen boats. The first part of the flotilla will leave Spain on August 31, with another dozen boats planning to set sail from Tunisia on September 4. This initiative will include the Trotskyist Fraction, the International to which Left Voice belongs.
This vast action was made possible by the coalition of several organizations denouncing the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Among them are the “Maghreb Sumud Flotilla,” the Malaysian organization “Sumud Nusantara,” and the Freedom Flotilla which had previously chartered the Madleen and the Handala. These two symbolic expeditions, which set sail in June and July of last year, had helped to put Gaza back at the center of global media attention, while the famine was worsening and as Israel was initiating the first phase of operation “Chariots of Gideon,” a plan to conquer the entire Gaza Strip. These two maritime attempts were then accompanied by a land initiative, the “Global March to Gaza,” in which several thousand demonstrators headed to Gaza via the Sinai desert of Egypt. That mobilization was harshly repressed by the Al-Sisi regime. The organizers of this event, under the new name “Global Movement to Gaza,” are also joining the “Global Sumud Flotilla.”
The initiative is also being joined by various movement figures, starting with Greta Thunberg, who had previously attempted to reach Gaza on board the Madleen, but was arrested by the IDF on the way. It also includes various actors, such as the American Susan Sarandon and the Swede Gustaf Skarsgård, and elected officials and activists, such as the French MP Emma Fourreau and the Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila. The Trotskyist Fraction (FT) is also supporting and participating in this new expedition, notably with the presence of Bruno Gilga, spokesperson for the Brazilian delegation. Bruno Gilga is active in Left Voice’s sister organization in Brazil, the Movimento Revolucionário de Trabalhadores (MRT), and he had already participated in the “Global March to Gaza,” alongside other Trotskyist Fraction activists from the Spanish state and Argentina.
of note: Italian dockworkers are threatening to shut down Europe if this flotilla is not allowed through or if contact is lost with the flotilla:
Speaking at a rally on the docks of Genoa, one of Europe's largest ports, a dockworker representing the USB union said that if communication with the flotilla were lost “even for just 20 minutes,” port workers would immediately block all shipments to Israel, regardless of their content.
“Around mid-September, these boats will arrive near the coast of Gaza. If we lose contact with our boats, with our comrades, even for just 20 minutes, we will shut down all of Europe,” said the dockworker, a video of whom has circulated widely online and in Italian media but who has not been identified.
“From this region 13 to 14,000 containers leave every year for Israel, not a single nail will leave anymore,” he added.