Barcelona, Spain – Volunteers from internationally have come collectively in the primary corridor of one in every of Spain’s oldest labour unions, the UGT – as soon as a registration centre for worldwide volunteers who got here to Spain to struggle fascism through the Spanish Civil Warfare.
Now it has educated the nonviolent worldwide volunteers – Palestine supporters, activists, journalists and politicians – who will sail on the International Sumud Flotilla to Gaza on Sunday.
“We’re not heroes. We’re not the story. The story is the individuals of Gaza,” organiser Thiago Avila, a lifelong activist for Palestine and environmental justice, informed the crowds gathered for a information convention earlier than the ships set sail.
Their purpose is to ship humanitarian support, which is the flotilla’s solely cargo, and open a humanitarian hall for Palestinians going through being starved and killed by Israel.
In lower than two years of warfare, Israel has killed greater than 63,000 Palestinians with tens of 1000’s extra injured and lacking.
Crusing into the unsure
About 26,000 purposes from individuals around the globe got here in and have been whittled right down to the a whole lot who will probably be on board the roughly 100 flotilla boats.
The flotilla will begin in Barcelona and head to Tunisia, the place will probably be joined by extra vessels on Thursday.
As soon as out once more on the Mediterranean Sea, it would converge with extra boats leaving Italy and different undisclosed ports, and collectively they’ll sail in formation to the Gaza Strip.
Organisers know time is in opposition to them as Israel kills Palestinians each day, not solely utilizing air strikes and floor forces but in addition a man-made famine that it has imposed.
Since 2010, all freedom flotillas to Gaza have been intercepted or attacked by Israeli forces.
In June, the ship Madleen was illegally intercepted by Israeli forces in worldwide waters about 185km (115 miles) west of Gaza, the place Israel has no authority. Its crew, which included local weather activist Greta Thunberg, have been detained or expelled.
In 2010, the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, made up of six ships carrying humanitarian support and greater than 600 passengers, was raided by Israeli commandos in Mediterranean waters.
The commandos killed 10 activists and wounded dozens.
Different makes an attempt have been blocked by Israel in 2011, 2015, 2018 and a number of makes an attempt in 2025, together with the Conscience, which was struck twice by drones 25km (14 nautical miles) off Malta.
An earlier try over land, referred to as the International March to Gaza, set out in June to ship support to Gaza via the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
A lot of these volunteers have regrouped in Tunisia to collect ships to hitch the International Sumud Flotilla.
Decided volunteers
The Barcelona gathering mirrored a large worldwide presence, together with delegations from Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland and america.
The volunteers, some veterans of a number of flotillas, are targeted on their collective objective: to interrupt Israel’s siege of Gaza and ship support to its individuals.
Coaching periods in Barcelona have been intense, designed to organize individuals for eventualities equivalent to interception in worldwide waters, arrest, imprisonment, deportation, violent assault or bureaucratic methods to halt the departure of boats.
However the basis of their preparation is sustaining nonviolence in any of those eventualities, one thing the organisers highlighted a number of instances and warned that breaking from that precept wouldn’t be accepted.
Each volunteer has signed a strict code of conduct, committing to peaceable resistance and rejecting techniques of oppression and exploitation all through the mission.
Workshops additionally revisited the historical past of nonviolent battle – from Mahatma Gandhi’s management in India’s independence motion to Rosa Parks’s defiance in opposition to racial segregation in america.
Among the many individuals was Luna Valentina, a 24-year-old Colombian volunteer. She is married to a Palestinian refugee and has lived in exile herself after being focused in Colombia for her activism throughout mass protests in opposition to right-wing former President Ivan Duque.
![Luna Valentina [Mauricio Morales/Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/576A6746-1756632046.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
The couple reside in Jordan after going through racism in Europe as they tried to seek out someplace to settle, she informed Al Jazeera.
Through the International March to Gaza, Valentina joined different Colombians on the best way to Rafah. She recalled the solidarity, power and care she discovered amongst fellow Colombian feminine activists, a few of whom will set sail along with her now, and others who will help the mission from land.
On the brink of set sail
On Friday, a three-day celebration of the volunteers and their mission started on Moll de la Fusta, a port walkway in Barcelona, because the countdown started for his or her departure.
It was a heat outpouring of help as sounds of drums stuffed the air, a whole lot of Palestinian flags fluttered and crowds gathered for a competition of music, tradition and artwork to point out help for Palestinians in Gaza and for the volunteers of the flotilla.
What everyone seems to be hoping for is that the ships will arrive on the coast of besieged Gaza and ship humanitarian support that Israel has blocked from coming into.
For Avila, the daddy of a new child, this flotilla continues a legacy: “I really like my daughter a lot, because the moms and dads in Gaza, and due to this love, … we can’t go away a world like this. We’ve to vary the society that permits a genocide to occur,” he informed Al Jazeera.
“I imagine that anybody that isn’t useless inside dies just a little bit with each little one in Gaza that dies,” he added.
That sentiment was shared by an Australian mom of 4 who has additionally joined the flotilla. Her voice broke as she mentioned: “Nobody ought to reside and die like this. Everybody deserves the identical dignity and freedom.”
