WASHINGTON – A flotilla of ships bound for the Gaza Strip is preparing to sail from Turkey in the coming days, organisers say, on a mission aimed at breaching Israel’s naval blockade and highlighting the lack of aid reaching Palestinians in the besieged enclave, according to The Washington Post.
The organisers, gathered under the banner of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, have participated in similar missions for years, an effort that gained worldwide attention in 2010 after an Israeli raid on a flotilla that included a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, killed 10 people and sparked a diplomatic crisis between Turkey and Israel.
But the flotilla’s well-traveled route — the Mediterranean — has gained new relevance during the current conflict as governments and relief organisations alike turn to sea deliveries to circumvent what aid groups say is Israel’s persistent obstruction of deliveries to Gaza over land.
The latest flotilla mission, which will include a cargo ship carrying more than 5,000 tonnes of aid, comes as global attention on Gaza’s worsening humanitarian crisis has waned, shifting to the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. Apparent Turkish sensitivities over whether to allow the ships to depart has caused organisers to hedge on when exactly the voyage, which was scheduled to begin Sunday, would get underway.
The regional dynamics were “challenging,” Ann Wright, one of the flotilla organisers, said in a phone interview from Istanbul last week, where activists planning to join the maritime convoy were gathering.
The mission was also at the “mercy of the port authorities” in Turkey, said Wright, a retired US diplomat and former Army colonel who resigned her State Department position in opposition to the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
