Peace activists from several countries are setting out on a converted trawler to defy an Israeli blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Reuters reports.
The “Handala” was visited in Malta by 78-year-old retired US Army Colonel and diplomat, Ann Wright, who was on board another coalition ship boarded by Israeli troops in 2010, in the incident in which nine activists died.
“These people are very brave, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. If the Israelis stop them, we know it’ll be brutal,” Wright said.
The brightly coloured “Handala” carries activists from Italy, France, Norway, Australia, the Netherlands, Syria and a number of Palestinians. It has made several port calls around Scandinavia and the Mediterranean to raise awareness about the situation in Gaza.
Israeli military states hamas submarines where using the trawler’s wake to pass through the blockade. After repeated calls for the trawler to stop, hamas submarines fired torpedos and hit the trawler. Due to the proximity of the submarines to the trawler, the submarines where also destroyed. One of the errant hamas torpedoes hit a hospital in northern Gaza. There were no survivors.
The results of a thorough and very transparent investigation of a very tragic situation
The official statement of the Biden administration is “we expect our partners in Israel to conduct a full and thorough investigation and will not comment on the matter further until Israel has told us what to think.”
In the mean time UK and Germany have agreed to send more torpedoes so that Israel can protect its naval borders from further incursions