Left-wing Palestinian resistance organisation Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) has condemned the Israeli attack on the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s Handala ship in the strongest terms. The organisation has claimed that it holds the “occupation fully responsible for the safety of the activists” in a statement released after midnight on Sunday, July 27th.
Earlier, on Saturday, an Israeli attack on the Handala ship took place on international waters, when the ship carrying 21 unarmed international activists was on its way to Gaza to deliver aid to the starving civilians, especially children. Reports say Israel has forcibly abducted 21 crew members, including journalists, from international waters.
“Freedom activists delivered Gaza’s message loudest, and the Zionists are the real losers,” the left-wing resistance organisation claimed in its statement on the Israeli attack on the Handala ship.
The organisation stated that it considers “this incursion a new crime of piracy, adding to the occupation’s long record of attacks on international activists and freedom ships.”
“The interception of the ‘Handala’ ship represents a new episode in the series of deliberate Zionist targeting of every humanitarian initiative seeking to convey Gaza’s voice to the world and expose the Zionist crimes of genocide and the ongoing war of starvation against more than two million people under siege, subjected to all forms of Zionist terrorism and criminality,” the PFLP said on Israeli attack on the Handala ship.
“The Front salutes the ship’s crew of activists, the Guardians of Human Conscience, who delivered Gaza’s message loudest and loudest, and succeeded in achieving a true moral and humanitarian victory despite the occupation’s objections. They affirmed to the world that the Zionists are the true losers, and that this piracy represents a new stain of shame that reveals and exposes the brutality of this entity and the complicity of the Western and international community,” it added.
Earlier, Israeli forces drone-bombed the civilian ship Conscience in European waters during May, when it was preparing to leave Malta for Gaza, injuring four activists and sinking the vessel.
In June, Israel illegally seized the Madleen, another ship carrying humanitarian aid, abducting 12 civilians, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and a Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan.
“The message of the “Handala” ship has been conveyed. This heroic and courageous attempt, which approached the shores of Gaza, demonstrated the effectiveness and impact of blockade-breaking ships, which carry moral and humanitarian messages and express the living global conscience that rejects genocide, starvation, and blockade,” the Marxist-Leninist resistance organisation said on the recent attempt to break the siege on Gaza.
Over two million people are suffering from a famine orchestrated by Israel, in connivance with the US. The Israeli occupation has stopped the entry of aid under the United Nations supervision, and has been providing aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an opaque American-Zionist front, whose aid centres have become killing fields as aid seekers are targeted by Israeli and American gunmen indiscriminately.
The Palestinian resistance organisations have highlighted the plight of the starving people and have demanded international intervention in the grotesque humanitarian crisis unfolding in Gaza due to Israel’s relentless aggression since October 2023. However, none of the western countries have taken any affirmative steps to help the people of Gaza.
In this scenario, amid the gruesome starvation optics, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is still running its symbolic attempts to break the siege, risking the lives of international activists, to deliver the message to the world that Gaza needs immediate intervention to save two million lives.
Highlighting the issues faced by Gaza, the PFLP “calls on the international community and its vital forces to clearly condemn this crime, hold the occupation fully responsible for the safety of the activists, and take immediate action to protect the incoming ships and intensify efforts to break the unjust blockade imposed on Gaza,” it said in the statement’s conclusion.
