PRESS RELEASE
Freedom Flotilla Coalition Launches Boats for New Phase of Gaza Flotilla Mission
For Immediate Release
May 13, 2026
FFC Media Contact: David Heap (English, français, español)
media@freedomflotilla.org
Phone & WhatsApp: +1 519 859 3579
On May 13, 2026, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is launching five vessels — Adalah, Kyriakos X, Lina Al Nabulsi, PERSEVERANCE and Tenaz Love Aqsa Bangladesh — from a Greek island as part of the broader international flotilla effort to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza and challenge the impunity enabling genocide, starvation, and the wholesale erasure of the Palestinian people. These vessels will join approximately 55 additional boats departing from Marmaris, Türkiye. While our five boats (sailing under French, Italian and Polish flags) carry symbolic amounts of food and medicine, we are not an aid organization. We sail in defiance of a brutal and unlawful blockade designed to isolate, imprison, and persecute Palestinians, and in rejection of the international community’s failure to stop Israel’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.
Since 2010, the FFC has organized and sailed dozens of vessels in direct challenge to Israel’s unlawful naval blockade, building on the historic missions of the Free Gaza Movement, which first broke the blockade by sea in 2008. Following the June 2025 voyage of the Madleen, international participation in flotilla initiatives expanded significantly, reflecting growing global civil society’s refusal to accept our governments’ normalization of siege and genocide.
This phase of the mission follows Israel’s April 29 attack on 22 civilian vessels off the western coast of Greece, as well as the abduction and abuse of two Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) organizers. Following that attack, organizers temporarily paused departures in order to assess security conditions and coordinate next steps. Despite escalating attacks and intimidation, the flotilla mission continues.
In recent weeks, Israel and the United States have attempted to smear and criminalize the GSF through baseless allegations clearly aimed at delegitimizing civilian resistance and manufacturing public consent for further attacks on the mission. The release of organizers Saif and Thiago without charges only further exposed the emptiness of these claims. Israel and all states cooperating with it are on clear notice: this flotilla is civilian, unarmed, and sailing in accordance with international law, and in defense of fundamental human rights.
For Palestinians in Gaza who have endured two decades of a deadly blockade, repeated military assaults, forced deprivation, sexual violence and ongoing genocide, this flotilla represents more than humanitarian solidarity. It is an act of international civilian resistance against settler colonial violence and the global machinery that sustains it.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition remains committed to direct, nonviolent action–at sea and on land–to confront Israel’s illegal closure of Gaza and to stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, dignity, return, and self-determination.
About the Freedom Flotilla Coalition:
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is composed of civil society organizations and grassroots initiatives from across the globe. Since 2010, we have actively challenged Israel’s illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza by sea, continuing the powerful precedent set by the Free Gaza Movement, which began sailing boats to Gaza in 2008. Our actions aim to uphold international law and to support the Palestinian people’s rights to freedom of movement, self-determination, and dignity. The FFC is committed to confronting the complicity of governments, corporations, and institutions that enable and profit from Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid. See a list of FFC member campaigns and partners.
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