When feeding the starving becomes a crime: Gaza blockade and bombed aid ships
By Humaira Ahad
Shortly after midnight last Friday, Israeli military drones bombed a humanitarian aid ship carrying food and medicine to the besieged Gaza Strip.
The civilian vessel, belonging to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), was carrying aid and on board were 30 international activists from 21 countries who aimed to break Israel’s two-month-long complete and crippling aid blockade on the besieged Strip.
Before sailing to Gaza, the ship was scheduled to stop in Malta and pick up about 40 more people, including climate change and human rights activist Greta Thunberg and retired US Army colonel Mary Ann Wright.
“The Gaza-bound aid ship, Conscience, was hit by Israeli drones in international waters just 17 nm off Malta – Israel’s blockade tactics have reached Europe’s doorstep,” Euro-Med Monitor, the Geneva-based human rights organisation, said in a statement on X.
The FCC is an international network of pro-Palestinian activists working to end Israel’s blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to Gazans by taking direct, non-violent action.
“At 00:23 Maltese time, the Conscience, a Freedom Flotilla Coalition ship, came under direct attack in international waters. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition had been organizing a nonviolent action under a media blackout to avoid any potential sabotage,” the FFC coalition said in a statement after the attack.
“Volunteers from over 21 countries travelled to Malta to board the mission to Gaza, including prominent figures. On the morning of their scheduled departure, the vessel was attacked. Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull.”
The ship was crippled and at risk of sinking, though its crew were rescued. Following the assault, the coalition called for an investigation into possible war crimes committed by the Zionist regime.
In a statement on Sunday, the FFC said it received a “welcome update” from the Malta government, with a stated intent to provide logistical support and potential repairs to our ship.”
“Our mission is to mobilize global solidarity in the face of genocide in Gaza. For over 60 days, no humanitarian aid has entered by land, This crisis demands urgent international action. In the absence of political will, we remain committed to acting as global citizens,” said FCC organizer and spokesperson, Yasemin Acar.
“While we’re grateful for all the support, every day without an investigation delays aid and denies justice. We have the right to know who attacked us and put humanitarian workers’ lives at risk.”
Reactions to the FCC attack
The attack on the humanitarian aid vessel and subsequent developments triggered international condemnation of the Zionist regime.
Palestinian resistance groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad strongly condemned Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla as piracy and a blatant violation of international law.
“The drone attack carried out last night by the criminal Zionist occupation army on “The Conscience” ship – part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition – while it was sailing in international waters en-route to deliver humanitarian aid to our people in the Gaza Strip, constitutes a blatant act of piracy and organized state-terrorism,” Hamas said in a statement.
“The attack is a new proof of the enemy’s use of starvation as a weapon in the genocide and a blatant mockery of international laws and norms, including ICJ and ICC decisions, and an insolent defiance of the will of free peoples,” said the Islamic Jihad.
Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah termed the attack “a flagrant violation of international laws, norms, and humanitarian values,” and noted that the crime “would not have occurred without the blatant American support for this temporary entity, the shameful international complicity, and the shameful Arab silence regarding the war of genocide.”
The Mujahideen Movement described the attack as a “new terrorist crime” that “threatens global stability and peace,” while urging continued efforts by the free people of the world to break the siege on the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The Popular Resistance Committees described the attack on the aid ship as “Zionist thuggery, bullying, crime, and fascism without limits,” calling the Israeli regime a “rogue, criminal entity devoid of all human qualities” and an “enemy to all of humanity.”
Euro-Med Monitor said the “deliberate targeting of a civilian aid ship in international waters violates the UN Charter, the Law of the Sea, and the Rome Statute, which prohibit attacks on humanitarian objects.”
“This attack fits a well-documented pattern, the use of force to block aid ships headed to Gaza, long before they reach its shores. Maritime relief has been targeted before. This isn’t the first time,” the Geneva-based organisation stated.
Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, said on X that she “received a distressed call from the people of the Freedom Flotilla that is carrying essential food and medicine to the starving Gaza population.”
“I call on concerned state authorities, including maritime authorities, to support the ship and its crew as needed. I trust the competent authorities will also ascertain the facts and intervene appropriately,” she wrote.
Thunberg, who was supposed to board the ship as part of the Freedom Flotilla group’s voyage towards Gaza, said this was “one of many attempts to open up a humanitarian corridor and to do our part to keep trying to break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza.”
“For two months now, not a single bottle of water has entered Gaza, and it’s a systematic starvation of 2 million people,” the prominent climate change activist added.
Human rights activists on board said that they will continue to work and raise their voice against the atrocities committed by the Israeli regime in Gaza.
“We didn’t even think that this would happen. It’s the craziest thing in the world. The ship was anchored there, waiting for us to come. Who would send drones to bomb a ship that is anchoring off Malta,” Wright said, noting that “this should be a warning to all European countries.”
Evidence of Israel’s attack
The attack on the Conscience came on the same day that a week of hearings on Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip ended at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in which representatives of at least 40 countries presented their arguments.
Meanwhile, all evidence of the attack points to Israel. Citing flight-tracking website ADS-B Exchange, CNN reported that an Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules was picked up leaving the occupied territories early Thursday afternoon and flying to Malta.
“The Hercules did not land at Malta’s international airport, the data shows, but the cargo aircraft did fly at a relatively low altitude — below 5,000 feet — over eastern Malta for an extended period of time,” the report stated.
“The Hercules flew over several hours before the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said their vessel came under attack. The plane returned to Israel about seven hours later, flight-tracking data shows.”
As the court proceedings ended, the US again demonstrated its deep and direct complicity in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
The US State Department lawyer told the ICJ that Israel “has no duty” to allow UN aid into Gaza, and that the United States fully backs Israel’s United Nations Relief and Works Agency ban.
It came as community charity kitchens that have been feeding tens of thousands of starving children in Gaza have run out of supplies amid the most extensive blockade since October 2023.
History of Israeli attacks on aid vessels
In March, Israel’s minister of military affairs Israel Katz said that the “regime will allow the protest flotillas to reach the Gaza coast, disembark the protesters in Gaza, and seize the ships and transfer them to the port of Ashdod so that they can be used to evacuate Gaza residents who are interested in leaving Gaza.”
FCC activists have pointed out that Israel has attacked activists involved in the Freedom Flotilla movement numerous times in the past, and most recently tried to obstruct a Freedom Flotilla mission last year as it tried to provide aid amid Israel’s genocide.
In 2010, the Israeli military sieged and boarded the flotilla, Mavi Marmara, crewed by activists trying to deliver 10,000 tons of aid to Gaza. Israeli occupation soldiers at the time took the activists on the boats hostage, killing 10 of them and wounding 30. Activists involved in the effort said there were nearly 700 people aboard the boats.
Since 2007, the Israeli authorities have enforced an illegal siege on the coastal territory.
A United Nations Human Rights Council report deemed the Gaza blockade illegal and stated that Israel’s attack on the ship “betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality,” with evidence of “wilful killing.”
In the aftermath of this horrifying attack, the Obama administration blocked efforts at the UN Security Council for an international inquiry into the incident.
America also blocked criticism of Israel for violating international law by attacking a ship on international waters.
Despite the global outrage sparked by the attack, the then-US vice president Joe Biden took the lead in defending Israel’s attack on the humanitarian aid convoy, describing the deadly raid as “legitimate,” applauding Israel’s right to besiege Palestinians in Gaza, and shifting the blame to the victims.
“So what’s the big deal here? What’s the big deal of insisting it go straight to Gaza?” Biden said at that time. “Well, it’s legitimate for Israel to say, ‘I don’t know what’s on that ship.”
In 2014, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it would not prosecute over Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010, in which 10 activists died, despite a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed”.
Israeli attacks on food supplies
After October 7, 2023, Israel announced a “total blockade” on the Gaza Strip, halting the entry of all food, water, medicine, fuel and electricity to the coastal enclave.
Israel’s then-military affairs minister, Yoav Gallant, referred to Palestinians as “human animals”, and ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza.
On February 29, 2024, the regime killed at least 112 Palestinians and wounded more than 750 when it opened fire on Palestinians waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City.
The brutal killing event is remembered as the “flour massacre”.
In April 2024, Israeli drone strikes targeted an aid convoy with the World Central Kitchen (WCK), killing six international aid workers and a Palestinian driver.
The WCK was forced to halt its humanitarian operations after the Israeli attack.
Since March 2, Israel has completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the besieged territory. The regime halted all humanitarian aid shortly before it broke a ceasefire and restarted its genocidal war, which has devastated the Palestinian enclave and killed more than 52,000 people.
According to international aid agencies, food stocks in Gaza have all run out.
“It’s very important to understand this attack is an extension of the genocide that is happening in Gaza and cannot pass unpunished,” human rights activist Nicole Jenes said about the recent FCC attack.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in a May 2 report that the humanitarian response in Gaza is “on the verge of total collapse”.
“Six weeks of intense hostilities, combined with a complete blockage of aid for two months, have left civilians without the essentials they need to survive. Without an immediate resumption of aid deliveries, they will not have access to the food, medicines, and life-saving supplies needed to sustain many of its programmes in Gaza,” the ICRC said.
Earlier this week, the World Food Programme (WFP) said that its warehouses are now empty, soup kitchens that are still running are severely rationing their last stocks, and what little food remains in Gaza’s markets is being sold for exorbitant prices that most people cannot afford.
Last week, a top Palestinian official, Ammar Hijazi, told ICJ judges that “all U.N.-supported bakeries in Gaza have been forced to shut their doors.”
“Nine of every 10 Palestinians have no access to safe drinking water. Storage facilities of the U.N. and other international agencies are empty,” Hijazi added. “These are the facts. Starvation is here. Humanitarian aid is being used as a weapon of war.”
