Barcelona, Spain – Volunteers from the world over have come collectively in the principle corridor of certainly one of Spain’s oldest labour unions, the UGT – as soon as a registration centre for worldwide volunteers who got here to Spain to battle fascism through the Spanish Civil Warfare.
Now it has skilled the nonviolent worldwide volunteers – Palestine supporters, activists, journalists and politicians – who will sail on the World Sumud Flotilla to Gaza on Sunday.
“We aren’t heroes. We aren’t the story. The story is the folks of Gaza,” organiser Thiago Avila, a lifelong activist for Palestine and environmental justice, advised the crowds gathered for a information convention earlier than the ships set sail.
Their objective is to ship humanitarian help, 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 struggle, 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 folks all over the world got here in and have been whittled right down to the a whole bunch who shall be on board the roughly 100 flotilla boats.
The flotilla will begin in Barcelona and head to Tunisia, the place it is going to be joined by extra vessels on Thursday.
As soon as out once more on the Mediterranean Sea, it’s going to 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 every 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 help 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 World March to Gaza, set out in June to ship help to Gaza by way of the Rafah crossing with Egypt.
Lots of these volunteers have regrouped in Tunisia to assemble ships to hitch the World 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 centered on their collective objective: to interrupt Israel’s siege of Gaza and ship help to its folks.
Coaching classes in Barcelona have been intense, designed to organize contributors for eventualities similar 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 programs of oppression and exploitation all through the mission.
Workshops additionally revisited the historical past of nonviolent wrestle – 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 contributors 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 advised Al Jazeera.
In the course of the World March to Gaza, Valentina joined different Colombians on the way in which to Rafah. She recalled the solidarity, power and care she discovered amongst fellow Colombian feminine activists, a few of whom will set sail together with her now, and others who will assist the mission from land.
On the point 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 assist as sounds of drums crammed the air, a whole bunch of Palestinian flags fluttered and crowds gathered for a competition of music, tradition and artwork to indicate assist 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 help that Israel has blocked from coming into.
For Avila, the daddy of a new child, this flotilla continues a legacy: “I like my daughter a lot, because the moms and dads in Gaza, and due to this love, … we can not go away a world like this. We now have to alter the society that permits a genocide to occur,” he advised Al Jazeera.
“I imagine that anybody that’s not useless inside dies a bit of 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.”
