Detained Activists Stand Firm When Handala Aid Ship Illegally Seized
Israeli
Occupation Forces board the Handala in International
waters,
July 26, 2025
Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) stormed the Handala aid ship in international waters on Saturday, July 26 as it approached the coast of the Gaza Strip, after it set sail from Syracuse, Sicily, Italy on July 13. Twenty-one people representing 10 countries were on board, including members of European parliaments, human rights defenders, union leaders, artists and media figures. Christian Smalls, organizer of Amazon Labor Union and the only Black person on board was beaten and choked. All were kidnapped by the IOF and detained in Israel.
The International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza informed that the Handala activists refused to sign documents related to forced deportation and maintained a hunger strike while in detention. Through concerted international efforts, they have all now been released, the last on July 31. This is the third time a ship from the Freedom Flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza has been stopped by the Zionists.
As the IOF
prepared to board and communicated with the Handala,
Huwaida Arraf, a main organizer of the Freedom Flotilla and
human
rights attorney from Michigan, defiantly said, "Any blockade
that
deliberately starves a civilian population is a violation of
international law. It is not
only that – it is a war crime. You have no legal authority to
enforce
an unlawful blockade."
"We demand that you stand down. You are responsible for the well being of every civilian on board this vessel. As an occupying power in Gaza, you are responsible for the health and well being of the civilian population there. Not only have you disregarded that obligation, but you are actively exterminating the people. You have engineered a famine. You are deliberately starving civilians and children before the eyes of the world. Our vessel does not constitute any threat to you. We carry only humanitarian aid, and therefore, you have no authority to intercept or otherwise attack our vessel. We demand again that you stand down," Arraf insisted.
Zaher Birawi, the head of the International Committee to Break the Siege on Gaza and a founding member of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, said, "What happened with the Handala ship, when the occupation forces stormed it, took it to the port of Ashdod, and arrested the 21 activists on board, was expected. We have become accustomed to Israel's crimes and its violations of international law. [It] was an act of piracy carried out by the occupation forces in international waters."
"However," Birawi said, "the problem does not lie with the occupying state, whose daily crimes against our Palestinian people we have become accustomed to, but rather with the countries sponsoring it, such as the United States and European countries, which continue to support the occupying state militarily, politically, and financially to cover up its crimes. Indeed, they are considered complicit in these crimes."
On July 31, when the Freedom Flotilla Coalition announced that the final two activists, Christian Smalls of the U.S. and Hatem Aouini of Tunisia were freed from the Israeli Occupation's Givon prison, their statement said the two "were freed via Jordan's King Hussein/Allenby Bridge after five days of unlawful imprisonment in occupied Palestine. Both had been on hunger strike to protest mistreatment. Aouini was received by the Tunisian embassy at the border. Despite repeated requests for assistance, neither the U.S. Consulate nor U.S. Embassy officials met Christian at the border, even after being notified in advance of his arrival details.
"With their release, all 21 volunteers abducted from the Handala in international waters have now been released from Israeli captivity. But more than 10,300 Palestinian political prisoners remain caged in Israeli occupation prisons, at least 320 of them children, held in violation of international law and subjected to horrific forms of abuse and torture. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition's mission to break the blockade on Gaza rests firmly on international law and the right to resist occupation. While Israel continues to starve Palestinians and detain them en masse, we affirm our commitment to freedom, dignity, and justice for all. We will not stop until we break the siege and Palestine is free."
The Handala is named after a character created in 1969 by political cartoonist Naji al-Ali, that has become a national symbol for Palestine and the defiance of its people, and their right to return to their homeland.
(Palestine Chronicle, MEMO, Freedom Flotilla Coalition)
This article was published in
Volume 55
Number 21 - August 3, 2025
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2025/Articles/TS55212.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca