Breaking the Siege of Gaza: Freedom Flotillas since 2008

Understanding Israel/Palestine

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla movement began with a 2006 email from a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement sent to other volunteers struggling with how to bring to the attention of the world that Israel, while attacking Lebanon, was imprisoning Gaza. The email proposed chartering a big boat to sail from New York to Gaza, to Break the Siege, while acknowledging their proposal was so big it might need a sanity check. Rising to the challenge, two years later in 2008 a boat sailed all the way into the Gaza harbor, greeted by thousands of enthusiastic Palestinians. The book Freedom Sailors, written and edited by the people who lived this first step, is a vivid description of amazing courage and fortitude. Since 2008 flotillas bound for Gaza have been blocked by Israel. In 2010 Israel attacked the Mavi Marmara, one ship of a 6-ship flotilla, while still in international waters, killing 9 of the crew. The crew was totally unarmed. Alex McDonald, author of How I Learned to Speak Israel, a guide for Americans wanting to better understand the Israel/Palestine situation, was on the Freedom Flotilla boat that sailed to northern ports this summer to raise the world’s awareness of the flotilla movement. Another boat is due to sail to Gaza this spring. Video footage of the 2010 attack is shown in The Truth: Lost at Sea.