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Spain Joins Italy in Sending Ship to Protect Gaza-Bound Sumud Flotilla
The UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories implored other countries "to mobilize their fleet to grant the flotilla safe sailing to Gaza, and deploy a real humanitarian convoy to break the blockade."
Sep 24, 2025
Critics of Israel's genocide in the Gaza Strip welcomed Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Wednesday announcement that his country will join Italy in sending a warship to protect the Global Sumud Flotilla, which has endured several drone attacks during its journey to deliver humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians.
The flotilla—whose name means perseverance in Arabic—departed Barcelona over three weeks ago. The peaceful mission to break Israel's blockade of Gaza involves around 50 boats carrying hundreds of people from dozens of countries, including Spain.
"The government of Spain demands compliance with international law and respect for the right of its citizens to safely navigate the Mediterranean," Sánchez said during a Wednesday press conference in New York City, where he is attending the United Nations General Assembly. He said a vessel equipped to assist the flotilla will depart from Cartagena on Thursday.
Sánchez's move came after Italy's defense minister, Guido Crosetto, said earlier Wednesday that his government sent a naval ship "to ensure assistance to the Italian citizens on the flotilla" following an overnight drone attack in the Mediterranean Sea.
Both ship announcements followed 16 foreign ministers, including Spain's José Manuel Albares, warning Israel against attacking the Global Sumud Flotilla last week. On Monday, the Spaniard had reaffirmed diplomatic support for participants, vowing that Spain "will react to any act that violates their freedom of movement, their freedom of expression, and international law."
The Israeli government has a history of attacking flotillas, and although it has not formally claimed credit for the recent drone attacks, it is widely believed to be responsible. The latest was "the largest and most terrifying attack yet," Progressive International co-general coordinator David Adler, who is part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, told Jacobin.
"While we expect these attacks to escalate each day that we approach Gaza, we cannot normalize the criminal violence committed against this peaceful convoy of humanitarian workers and the critical aid that we carry with us," Adler said. "This midnight incident is just a reminder of the brutal violence deployed against the people of Palestine, hour by hour and day by day. If the state of Israel can attack us here—with the eyes of the world watching—then they can do so in Gaza a millionfold, with even greater impunity."
Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has posted multiple threatening messages on social media attempting to connect the Global Sumud Flotilla to Hamas, which Israel and its ally the United States have designated a terrorist organization.
"We have another proposal for the Hamas-Sumud flotilla: If this is not about provocation and serving Hamas, you are welcome to unload any aid you might have at any port in a nearby country outside Israel, from which it can be transferred peacefully to Gaza," the ministry said several hours after the latest attack. "Israel will not allow vessels to enter an active combat zone and will not allow the breach of a lawful naval blockade. Is this about aid or about provocation?"
The Spanish and Italian governments' decisions have generated questions about how Israel will now engage with the flotilla.
"Wow. This is absolutely huge," British writer Owen Jones said of Sánchez's move. "After the attacks, Spain is offering direct military protection to the flotilla bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. So what now, Israel? Are you going to risk acts of war against a European nation so you can attack humanitarian vessels?"
The European leaders' actions have also been met with applause. Francesca Albanese, an Italian human rights lawyer now serving as UN special rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, said: "Thank you, Spain."
"I implore other countries to mobilize their fleet to grant the flotilla safe sailing to Gaza, and deploy a real humanitarian convoy to break the blockade," she continued. "That's what people want. That's what humanity commands. If not in the time of a genocide, when??"
Nathan J. Robinson, editor in chief of Current Affairs, said: "This is a good start. Now tell him to gather food, pack it on ships, and send the whole navy."
"Let Israel face down the full Spanish Armada if it wants to block aid from entering Gaza," he added.
As casualties have continued to climb in Gaza—local officials said Wednesday that the Israeli assault has killed at least 65,419 Palestinians and injured 167,160, though global experts believe those figures are undercounts—a growing number of world leaders have not only called for a cease-fire but also recognized the Palestinian state.
At UN headquarters earlier this week, Sánchez described recent recognition of Palestine as "a crucial step" toward "the two-state solution" but also stressed that "there can be no solution when the population of one of those states is the victim of genocide."
Speaking to the General Assembly on Tuesday, Colombian President Gustavo Petro called for invoking the United for Peace resolution to send an armed protection force to Gaza. He also took aim at US diplomatic and weapons support for Israel, saying that President Donald Trump "allows missiles to be launched at children, young people, women, and the elderly" and "becomes complicit in genocide."
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The Sumud of Direct Nonviolent Action
The Gaza-bound flotilla's nonviolent direct action requires strength and steadfastness. It is an active resistance to decades of injustice from an illegal sea, land, and air blockade.
Sep 24, 2025
It is 4:00 am on the 10th day of our sail, aboard a boat in the Global Sumud Flotilla. We have heard explosions hitting other boats and seen drones piercing the night sky.
Tensions are high as we wonder about the fate of the attacked boats and when our turn will come.
I am on night watch and taking a short break, for morning prayers. Despite the adrenaline, my heart is filled with awe at the magnificent starry night and the whooshing of the waves as they splash against our vessel. The splashing waves remind me of the waves of resistance from oppressed peoples and their allies since time immemorial, some violent and others not.
I was first introduced to the concept of nonviolent resistance during my time at the Madina Institute Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies. However, as a South African growing up during Apartheid, there have been moments when I perceived the strategy of nonviolence as weak, wondering if liberation would have ever come to South Africa without armed struggle.
If people ask me how hard it is to enact nonviolence as a strategy of resistance, my response is that it is tough but necessary, given the occupying power's total disregard for the sacredness of human life.
In recent years, my perspective has been reaffirmed that nonviolent direct action is strategically effective yet difficult to execute. Some describe nonviolence as passive, yet it is one of the most testing, active approaches we can take in resisting oppression. Nonviolence is far from a cop-out or a weak means of struggle, as I am learning on this flotilla.
As comrades on the flotilla, we have often said, "When governments fail, the people set sail." Governments and corporations have largely been weak in their tangible material interventions for Gaza, offering mostly rhetoric of condemnation and "thoughts and prayers."
This 38th flotilla to Gaza, aiming to break the illegal and immoral siege, is the largest and most historic to date. It is galvanizing attention on the urgent action required to open a sustainable sea corridor for humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Given the occupying power's war crimes on previous flotillas and its current aggression toward our flotilla in real time, I recall my chat with Ayesha Vahed, a South African attorney and legal reporter practicing in South Africa and The Hague. When asked, Vahed reaffirmed and explained to me that the Global Sumud Flotilla is protected under international law:
According to International Law, the flotilla mission is a completely lawful, civil, nonviolent humanitarian mission. The Israeli blockade, engineered to starve an entire population, is illegal under International Maritime Law. The flotilla has a right to humanitarian passage, based on the fact that the people in Gaza are under an occupying power and have a right to receive aid. This gives the flotilla free passage through international waters, an obligation that has been reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice, which has already ruled that Israel is obliged to allow unrestricted access of aid into Gaza.
Various international lawyers, academics, legal experts, and genocide scholars have mobilized behind this lawful initiative. Furthermore, the confirmation by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip obliges all States to fulfill their legal obligations under International Law. In a situation of genocide, states have an *erga omnes* obligation, which is an obligation owed to the international community as a whole, to facilitate human rights and protection, which in this case extends to the opening of humanitarian corridors.
Despite this international framework of legality, the Global Sumud Flotilla participants are being described as terrorists. This hasbara campaign is intended to construct a faulty basis for further aggressive actions toward flotilla participants, past and present. However, this type of behavior is not new to nonviolent movements, as was witnessed in the US Civil Rights Movement and the Palestinian Great March of Return.
As we sail in the People's Flotilla, the mandatory nonviolence training we received in Tunis from GSF trainers stressed that nonviolence is a dynamic method of action, not an avoidance of conflict. I personally witness the intensity of global mobilization and organizing as intensely active, not passive.
During our training in Tunisia, one trainer shared the history of flotilla missions to break Israel's illegal siege, and it was moving to meet and hear from those who had been on past flotilla missions, including the Mavi Marmara in 2010 when Israel Occupation Forces soldiers murdered nine activists during the interception of the vessel in international waters.
Our training also included examples of nonviolent actions shared by comrades from across the world, including historical examples from the Civil Rights Movement in America, the 1956 Women's March in South Africa, protests by Turkish women who were excluded from official spaces for wearing the hijab, and Mexican anti-government protests.
The flotilla's collective action across movements and countries involves broad-based mass participation and is a notable example of nonviolent mobilization, coupled with calls for boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. It is a movement built on strategic resistance to an illegal blockade and occupation.
The flotilla's nonviolent direct action requires strength and Sumud (steadfastness). It is an active resistance to decades of injustice from an illegal sea, land, and air blockade. It is far from a passive, symbolic, or performative action.
If people ask me how hard it is to enact nonviolence as a strategy of resistance, my response is that it is tough but necessary, given the occupying power's total disregard for the sacredness of human life. Acting in nonviolence requires great Sumud in the face of genocidal evil and violent occupation.
As humanitarians on a mission of hope, and solidarity with the Palestinian people in Gaza, nonviolence is our means of resistance, and our language of love.
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'Enough Words': Colombia's Petro Urges Armed UN Force to End Gaza Genocide
Such a force could be authorized under the UN General Assembly's veto-proof United for Peace resolution.
Sep 24, 2025
In his stirring final speech to a United Nations General Assembly, Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Tuesday called for an international armed intervention to end Israel's nearly two-year genocide in Gaza.
"We need a powerful army of the countries that do not accept genocide," Petro, who is in his last year in office and is limited under Colombian law to a single presidential term, told world leaders gathered in New York. "That is why I invite nations of the world and their peoples more than anything, as an integral part of humanity, to bring together weapons and armies."
"We must liberate Palestine," he asserted. "I invite the armies of Asia, the great Slavic people who defeated Hitler with great heroism, and the Latin American armies of Bolívar."
"We’ve had enough words; it’s time for Bolívar’s sword of liberty or death,” Petro argued, referring to the 19th century Latin American independence hero Simón Bolívar.
(Petro's remarks on Gaza begin shortly after the 34:00 mark in the following video)
Connecting Israel's obliteration of Gaza to renewed US militarism in the Western Hemisphere, Petro said that “they will not just bomb Gaza, not just the Caribbean as they are doing already, but all of humanity that demands freedom. Washington and NATO are killing democracy and helping to revive tyranny and totalitarianism on a global scale."
“[US President Donald] Trump not only lets missiles fall on young people in the Caribbean; he not only imprisons and chains migrants, but he also allows missiles to be launched at children, young people, women, and the elderly in Gaza," he added. "He becomes complicit in genocide—because it is genocide, and we must shout it again and again. This chamber is a silent witness and an accomplice to a genocide in today’s world.”
Petro's "enough words" rallying cry is complicated by the fact that Israel's allies Britain, France, and the United States—which largely arms Israel's genocide—wield veto power at the UN Security Council.
However, there is veto-proof action the world can take by invoking the United for Peace resolution adopted by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 1950. The measure is designed to empower action when at least one of the five permanent Security Council members uses a veto to thwart functions mandated under the UN Charter.
The resolution—which has been implemented more than a dozen times—allows the UNGA to take actions ranging from rejecting Israel's UN credentials to mandating an armed protection force for Gaza, if approved by two-thirds of UN member states.
There are also examples of nations acting unilaterally to end genocides and other human rights crises, although Colombia is obviously in no position to do so in Gaza. These include Vietnam's 1978-79 invasion of Cambodia during Pol Pot's reign of terror and, to a lesser extent, the contemporaneous Tanzanian invasion of Uganda to end the murderous rule of dictator Idi Amin.
India's 1971 invasion of Bangladesh during a US-backed Pakistani genocide and NATO's 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia to ostensibly protect Kosovar Albanians were also couched as anti-genocide interventions by their perpetrators, although critics ascribed ulterior motives to both wars.
Petro's speech came as Israeli forces continued Operation Gideon's Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the Gaza City area. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes including forced starvation and murder—and other officials have vowed to take control of all of Gaza, where Trump has proposed ethnically cleansing Palestinians and transforming the strip into the "Riviera of the Middle East."
Gaza officials said that least 84 Palestinians were killed throughout the strip on Wednesday, including at least 22 people massacred in an Israeli strike on a warehouse near Firas Market in Gaza City, where forcibly displaced civilians were sheltering. At least 15 of the victims were women and children.
Early this morning, an Israeli airstrike on the Firas Market in Gaza City’s Al-Daraj neighborhood massacred at least 22 Palestinians, among them 9 children and 6 women.
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— Josep Goded (New Main Account) (@josepgoded2.bsky.social) September 24, 2025 at 5:05 AM
Throughout the course of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, Petro and Colombia have backed up their rhetoric with action. In April 2024, Colombia asked to join South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague and subsequently did so. The following month, Petro announced Colombia's suspension of diplomatic relations with Israel.
Colombia, along with South Africa, also co-chairs the Hague Group, a coalition of more than 30 nations whose representatives gathered in the Colombian capital Bogotá in July for an emergency summit and issued a joint action plan for “coordinated diplomatic, legal, and economic measures to restrain Israel’s assault on the occupied Palestinian territories and defend international law at large.”
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