On Monday, April 20, a dozen vessels from the Global Sumud Flotilla’s 2026 mission carried out an action in international waters to divert the route of the cargo ship MSC Maya. It is one of the world’s largest container ships, heading to the Israeli ports of Ashdod and Haifa carrying materials related to the production of heavy artillery.

The sailboats approached the cargo ship and transmitted messages via radio, including: “To the crew aboard the MSC Maya: You are heading toward occupied Palestine, carrying tools of death and destruction. Gaza is under siege and its population is suffering collective punishment. Your cargo will fuel an apartheid regime that is committing genocide. Turn back now. Choose humanity over complicity. Choose justice over occupation. The world is watching. The flotilla stands between you and war crimes.”

This was the first action put forward by civilians, workers, and activists on the high seas in history undertaken to try to disrupt a state’s military operations. It was inspired by similar actions carried out in ports by dockworkers, such as those put forward in various ports against South African apartheid or, more recently, against the shipping of weapons for genocide in several Italian ports.

These workers’ actions today inspire the hundreds of activists on board, among whom are also oil workers, healthcare workers, educators, transport workers, and many others from various sectors. The Global Sumud Flotilla has called for replicating these attempts to break the chain of the war machine in all countries, including truck routes, maritime routes, and production plants.

One of the participants, Leandro Lanfredi, from the Rio de Janeiro oil workers’ union and a member of the Permanent Revolution Current delegation on board, explained just a mile from the freighter how the action was aimed at denouncing a shipping company known for “transporting weapons to the State of Israel and profiting from genocide,” while calling on “workers around the world to rise up and go on strike to break off trade and diplomatic relations with Israel, just as we oil workers are fighting to ensure that not a single drop of oil goes to that genocidal state.”

The shipping company MSC maintains ship-sharing agreements with ZIM, the Israeli state-owned shipping company that operates regular routes departing from or stopping at the port of Barcelona. The latter has been systematically denounced by the Palestinian movement, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, and the “No Port for Genocide” campaign.

The organizers of the Global Sumud Flotilla have pointed out that “under the Geneva Convention, the Genocide Convention, and the Arms Trade Treaty, states are obligated to halt arms transfers to Israel.” However, arms trade with the genocidal state has not been interrupted to date.

Not even the Spanish government has spoken in support of Palestinian self determination and passed a decree to this effect following massive social mobilizations. But even this “progressive” government has not banned these ships from transiting its ports or halted the purchase of military supplies crucial to rearmament plans, such as Spike missiles. This hypocrisy has been denounced by Mariona Tasquer, a student at the University of Barcelona and a member of the Revolutionary Current of Spanish State Workers, who has demanded “that the Spanish government put an end once and for all to all commercial and military relations with the genocidal state of Israel.”

This article was first published in Spanish at La Izquierda Diario on April 20.

The post Solidarity with Gaza Makes Headway at Sea: Global Sumud Flotilla Forces a Cargo Ship Carrying Weapons to Change Route appeared first on Left Voice.

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