18 flotilla ships set sail from Tunisia, Greece en route to Israel-blockaded Gaza

Eighteen ships from a Gaza-bound aid flotilla have set sail en route to the Israel-blockaded Palestinian territory, organizers said on Wednesday.

The departing vessels included 12 from Tunisia and six Syros, Greece, as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla.

“The Maghreb fleet has dispatched 12 ships from Tunisia toward Gaza,” Jawaher Channa, a member of the steering committee, told Anadolu.

She said the coalition is preparing another vessel to sail toward Gaza later Wednesday.

“All ships of the Maghreb fleet cannot set sail at once from Tunisian ports due to technical and logistical difficulties,” she said.

According to Channa, the Spanish “Family Boat,” the largest ship in the aid flotilla, had already left the northern Tunisian port of Bizerte and arrived in Italy’s territorial waters.

“All departing ships will meet in Italian waters to join the Spanish and Italian fleets,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Global Sumud Flotilla said on the US social media company X that six boats, with 26 Greeks and 20 international activists onboard, have set sail from Syros, Greece, and “are on way to unite with the solidarity fleet on route to Gaza.”

On Tuesday, the International Committee to Break the Israeli Siege of Gaza said all ships will gather near Malta before sailing together toward the shores of the Palestinian enclave.

The current convoy is the largest of its kind, aiming to challenge the blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza, where famine conditions have taken hold under Israel’s months-long closure of all crossings.

The Israeli army has killed almost 65,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The relentless bombardment has rendered the enclave uninhabitable and led to starvation and the spread of diseases.