New Matilda editor Chris Graham reports from the Al Awda, a lead ship steaming through the Mediterranean Sea about 24 hours from an attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade on the Palestinian people of Gaza.
If you’re an optimist, then I’m about 24 hours from Gaza. If you’re a pessimist, then I’m about 24 hours from witnessing a violent raid by the Israeli Defence Force on the Al Awda, the lead boat in the 2018 Freedom Flotilla which is aiming to break the decade long naval blockade imposed on the Palestinian people of Gaza.
I joined the Flotilla a week ago, in Sicily, Italy. We’ve sailed for seven days, straight down the middle of the Mediterranean. As I write, we’re not far off the coast of Egypt.
Contrary to popular belief, the Freedom Flotilla’s primary aim is not to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, although it is carrying much needed medical supplies on board (and the boats, if they make it through, will be donated to a Palestinian union to help contribute to an economic base for a ravaged people).
The Flotilla’s primary aim is to break the naval blockade and bring international attention to the plight of Palestinians, a people who have suffered under a brutal Israeli occupation since 1967, the last time the Gaza sea port was officially open for business.
On that front, the Freedom Flotilla does very well.
This is not a big story in Australia – we find our own ways to oppress people, like those on Manus and Nauru. So the indefinite detention of more than 2 million Palestinians in Gaza is hardly newsworthy in Australian media eyes. Indeed, we only really ever hear about Gaza when Israel unleashes another slaughter, like it did a few months ago when more than 130 unarmed Palestinian protestors were shot dead – and thousands more injured – for approaching the border fence between Gaza and Israel to protest their right to return to their lands.
But the Flotilla is a significant story overseas. Thousands and thousands of column centimetres have been filed in papers around the globe as, for the past two months, four ships – Al Awda, Freedom, Falestine and Mairead – have sailed throughout Europe, visiting multiple countries including Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, France, Spain, Portugal and Italy.
Read this piece of journalistic pro-Palestinian advocacy by Chris Graham in New Matilda.