The committee said in a post on its X account that "the first ship in the flotilla left the port of Bizerte at 3:00 PM GMT, heading for Gaza," while media cameras documented the moment the vessel left the port. Activists and local and regional media also circulated live footage of the ship's departure.
The "Global Resilience Fleet" currently comprises approximately 50 vessels docked in Tunisian ports, including a 23-ship Maghreb convoy and 22 foreign vessels, with participants from European and Latin American countries, as well as the United States, Pakistan, India, and Malaysia, according to fleet spokespeople.
A convoy of ships set sail from the Spanish port of Barcelona at the end of August, followed by another from the Italian port of Genoa on September 1st. The convoy arrived off the Tunisian coast last Sunday, paving the way for a mass expedition to Gaza aimed at breaking the Israeli blockade and opening a humanitarian corridor to deliver aid to the Palestinians.
Hundreds of activists, politicians, artists, and parliamentarians from 47 Arab and Western countries are participating in the flotilla, giving it unprecedented international momentum.
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This is the first time such a large number of ships have sailed together toward Gaza. Israel has previously intercepted individual ships heading to the Strip, seized them, and deported the activists on board.
Since March 2, Israel has closed all crossings into Gaza, preventing any food, medicine, or humanitarian aid from entering the Strip. This has plunged the Strip into famine, despite the backlog of aid trucks at its borders.
Israel sometimes allows the entry of very limited quantities of aid that fail to meet the minimum needs of the starving and do not end the famine, especially since most trucks are robbed by gangs that the Gaza government claims are protected by Israel.
Since October 7, 2023 , Israel, with American support, has been committing genocide in Gaza, leaving 64,803 Palestinians martyred, 164,264 injured, most of them children and women, hundreds of thousands displaced, and a famine that has claimed the lives of 420 Palestinians, including 145 children.
