Israel Breaks International Law So That It Can Continue To Starve Gaza

The Israeli navy intercepted 41 vessels carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza and detained over 450 people on Thursday. The first boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla set sail across the Mediterranean toward Gaza last month, along the way picking up dozens more from Greece, Italy, and Tunisia; after moving east for several weeks, the first boats were waylaid by Israeli forces in international waters roughly 75 miles off the coast late Wednesday night. The Israeli foreign ministry announced that the detainees would be transferred to the port city of Ashdod and deported to Europe.

The flotilla represents the largest organized effort to breach the naval blockade of Gaza since Israel began its campaign of genocide nearly two years ago. It was a global effort, with prominent human rights lawyers, several members of European parliaments, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, and Nelson Mandela's grandson Mandla taking part. Assembled near Crete on Sept. 23 and planning to sail to Gaza immediately, the flotilla was harassed and delayed by drone attacks. "Our boat was assailed by a quadcopter that dropped a little popper on deck," American activist Greg Stoker said on Instagram. "Another couple boats experienced that as well. Our VHF [very high frequency] radio was hijacked by adversarial comms, and they started playing Abba."

That was not the first drone attack on the flotilla, and it got the Italian and Spanish navies involved, with the two states sending boats to help escort the convoy toward Gaza. That assistance ended on Sept. 30, and that night, according to German activist Yasemin Acar, Israeli naval boats surrounded her boat and tried to force them to turn back. The next evening, Israeli boats began the process of intercepting the flotilla and detaining the participants, firing water cannons at them in the process. The crew of one boat, the Mikeno, evaded capture by switching their radar on and off. According to an update from the Global Sumud Flotilla's Telegram account, the Mikeno got within seven nautical miles of Gaza before being boarded and seized.

Israel intercepted most of the boats in international waters, making its violent dispossession of aid illegal under international law. The detainment of the sailors seems, legally speaking, like a clear act of kidnapping. Several governments have condemned the breaking of the flotilla, with Colombian President Gustavo Petro announcing that he would expel all Israeli diplomats from his country. Mass protests over the interception have broken out across the world. Thousands gathered in Madrid, Istanbul, and Athens. Italian union organizers announced a general strike for Oct. 3, and increasingly large protests have swept through the country in recent weeks as the movement has shut down train stations and gathered huge crowds in Rome, Napoli, and Milan.

Several attempts to run the blockade had been launched prior to the Sumud Flotilla setting sail. Israel has sealed off Gaza from naval access since 2006. In 2008, two boats carrying hearing aids successfully reached to Gaza despite Israel threatening to stop the relief effort; one of the 46 people involved was the sister in law of Tony Blair, whom Donald Trump wants to oversee a post-genocide transition government in Gaza. In 2010, the ship Mavi Marmara attempted to breach the blockade at the head of a flotilla, only to be intercepted by an Israeli commando team that killed 10 people on board.

In more recent years, activists have made repeated attempts to sail aid to Gaza, which is currently under famine conditions. All of them have been met with illegal, violent disruption. The Conscience was attacked by Israeli drones on May 2 off the coast of Malta. In June the Madleen was intercepted by Israeli forces and its passengers, including Thunberg and several other Global Sumud Flotilla participants, were arrested. Per the human rights group Adalah, "Volunteers were subjected to mistreatment, punitive measures and aggressive treatment, and two volunteers were held for some period of time in solitary confinement." That did not deter further efforts to break the blockade. In July the Handala made it past the Madleen's interception point, though it too was intercepted before reaching Gaza. Those arrested aboard the Handala, including Amazon warehouse organizer Chris Smalls, also reported "severe physical violence" from Israeli authorities.

Gaza remains sealed off from the outside world, save for a series of border crossings managed and often arbitrarily closed by Israel as it attempts to starve out the population. Aid trucks have been massing at the Rafah crossing at Gaza's southern border, yet Israeli authorities have held them there indefinitely as people die on the other side of the border. Boston Consulting Group rolled out an aid plan this past summer that resulted in starving Gazans being funneled into corridors where Israeli soldiers could shoot them. For years, Israeli settlers have disrupted convoys and destroyed aid packages.

Meanwhile, at least 453 people, 150 of them children, have died of starvation in Gaza since October 2023; 175 of those deaths have occurred within the past two months. The aid that could save lives is sitting there on the other side of a fence. People have been trying to get it to Gaza for months and years, and for just as long, the state of Israel has been working to prevent it.

People are starving and dying because the state of Israel wants them to. That is the atrocity meant to be addressed, or at least highlighted, by the flotilla: Starvation is not merely some emergent phenomenon or accidental byproduct of war; it has a perpetrator, and enforcers, and allies.