TEHRAN - The Israeli military intercepted dozens of boats sailing as part of an aid flotilla towards Gaza, detaining hundreds of passengers.  The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) was trying to break Israel’s 18-year blockade of Gaza and get aid into the war-ravaged enclave using ships that set sail from ports across the Mediterranean, CNN reported.

The convoy set sail from Barcelona, Spain, on August 31 and was bolstered by other activist ships from various Mediterranean ports as it moved closer to Gaza.
Among the participants are lawmakers from Spain and Italy, as well as Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Butcher calls aid flotilla “terror flotilla”

To justify its interception of boats, Israel said they were approaching “active combat zone”. War minister Israel Katz congratulated the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF), saying they stopped and neutralized “the terror flotilla.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also said the military “repelled a campaign of delegitimization against Israel.”
Drawing on the words of Katz, even lawmakers from Spain and Italy, French MEP Rima Hassanas, former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, as well as climate activist Thunberg and other European dignitaries are “terrorists”, but those who have destroyed about 90 percent of buildings in Gaza, imposed famine on 2.3 million population and have been committing war crimes against them for two years are just defending themselves against terrorism. 
The words by Netanyahu are also an open acknowledgement that his regime is acting illegally, unlawfully and illegitimately in Palestine as a whole and Gaza in particular.
It is not the first time that Israel raids aid convoys bound to Gaza. In June it intercepted the Freedom Flotilla Coalition carrying Thunberg and other prominent activists. In May, activists on board an FCC ship said they were targeted by an Israeli drone in international waters off Malta.
In 2010, 13 years before the start of the current Gaza war, Israeli forces attacked an aid flotilla in international waters, killing nine Turkish nationals.

GSF highlights indescribable sufferings of Gazans

The GSF comprises more than 500 participants - mainly from European countries – intended to deliver food, water and medicine to civilians in Gaza. But this is not the whole story. 
They are primarily highlighting Israel’s barbarity which has been butchering and starving civilians in Gaza. 
They are sending this message to the world that Israel is a pariah state and that the world is angry of Israel’s atrocious acts in Gaza. Indirectly, they are also showing that remaining silent in the face of these horrible acts against the Gazans cannot be condoned and that enabling Israel’s acts in the enclave is a complicity in the war crimes.
James Smith, a British doctor who has previously been on the flotilla, said he joined to protest “Israel’s illegal siege and blockade of Gaza.”
“It is a form of direct action, it’s a form of anti-colonial resistance,” said Smith, who also worked at al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza for 2.5 months.
“The flotilla is carrying humanitarian aid, but it’s not simply humanitarian,” Smith told CNN.
Comically, Israel’s foreign ministry has said that it has found documents in Gaza that “prove Hamas’s direct involvement” in the funding and execution of the flotilla. 
Sarcastically speaking, Israel usually has paperwork ready to legitimize its unfounded claims. For example, there is no starvation in Gaza, or Hamas operated a command center beneath Gaza’s largest hospital, or sexual assault on October 7 by Hamas militants, etc.  

U.S. repeats Israel’s narrative

In a post on X, Israel’s foreign ministry claimed said activists’ “sole purpose” was “provocation”. Like always, the U.S. rushed to back Israel in unlawfully intercepting the convoy. Its State Department parroted Israel’s narrative that the aid convoy was “a deliberate and unnecessary provocation.” 
Some European countries that have been backing Israel’s war machine in the Gaza Strip and has not still repented their actions should now feel shameful. They have stood on the wrong side of history. The leaders of these countries should notice that people took to the streets in cities in Italy, Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, Australia, the U.S., Malaysia, Caracas, Argentina, and some other cities to condemn the Israeli interception of the vessels. These demonstrations show that the public are losing their patience with Israel’s unending atrocious acts.
 In Italy, which has not yet joined or showed no inclination to join some other  important European countries that recently recognized the State of Palestinian, protesters took to the streets in cities including Rome, Pisa, Florence and Turin on Wednesday evening in protest to the interception of the vessels, and  a major Italian labor union called for a national general strike on Friday, across public and private sectors, in solidarity with the flotilla and the people of Gaza. If the siege on the enclave continues and if dreadful acts continue against the Palestinian in Gaza, GSF will not be the last aid convoy to defy Israel and navigate toward Gaza and put the pariah and occupation regime of Israel in a more complicated quandary.