Why the Freedom Flotilla matters to us in Gaza

I was born in Gaza just a year before the Second Intifada. I do not remember a single year of my life passing in a normal rhythm. I remember squeezing into street corners to dodge stray bullets. I remember sitting at my school desk, waiting to hear the bomb fall, because hearing it meant I was not the target.

In 2007, when I was eight years old, Israel imposed a harsh siege on Gaza. I remember times when we had nothing to eat except two cans of tuna. I would go to the nearby supermarket hoping to buy some snacks, only to find the shelves empty. Life was immense in its harshness, and we lived and still live in the world’s largest open-air prison. That is all I remember.

The only place that gave us a fleeting sense of freedom was the sea. We often call it the Gaza Sea, even though it is part of the Mediterranean. Somehow, it always felt disconnected from its other parts, as if it had turned into a vast lake trapped within Israeli-made borders. It became difficult to imagine that we were close to Jaffa, or Alexandria, or Athens. Israel had successfully isolated us from the world, and eventually, we began to believe it was unreachable.

In May 2011, I was eleven. I remember watching the Mavi Marmara on TV, believing it would reach us. I pictured it coming closer, flags waving, people cheering, the ship drawing a line across the sea. I didn’t understand the politics, but I understood what it meant to hope. When it was attacked and its passengers were killed, something inside me collapsed. Even the sea had turned its back on us. It had been shut like a door. That moment reshaped how I understood space, freedom, and the future. Help had come, but was stopped before it could arrive.

Now, in 2025, there is another ship. Its name is Madleen, after a Palestinian fisherwoman from Gaza whose boat was seized by Israeli forces. Madleen did not come with weapons. It did not need to. Its mission was not to confront the blockade with force, but to confront the silence that surrounds it. It was meant to resist the idea that nothing can be done in the face of Israel’s power. It was a civilian vessel, unarmed and clear in its purpose. It carried essentials: baby formula, flour, and rice; hygiene products like diapers and sanitary pads; water desalination equipment; medical supplies, crutches, and prosthetics for children.

I imagined the scene exactly as it unfolded, even before it happened. I could see the ship approaching in my mind, slow and determined, bearing its fragile cargo and the hopes of many. But before it could reach Palestinian waters, Israeli naval forces intercepted it in international waters. Madleen was boarded, its contents confiscated, and the activists on board were arrested. The ship was detained and redirected, just like the one before it.

I believe that even those on the ship knew how it would end. On their website, they mentioned what happened to the Mavi Marmara. But they made it clear they sailed not because they believed they would win, but because they refused to surrender to silence, fear, or complicity.

What Madleen carried most was not aid. It was refusal — refusal to normalize genocide and Gaza’s forced isolation.

This kind of solidarity does not arrive through empty speeches. It comes through risk. It comes through people choosing to stand in the space between power and its consequences — choosing to be present, to bear witness, when the world has been told to look away.

This is why it matters. In Gaza, what has been taken from us is not only our loved ones, our homes, our infrastructure, or our ability to move. What has been taken is also the belief that our lives are seen as worthy. When people risk their safety to show up, not to save us, but to insist that our isolation is unacceptable, they remind the world that our lives are not collateral. We are not too far, or too dangerous, or too politically complicated to stand beside. This kind of solidarity cuts through abstraction. It says: We are with you. Not because it is easy, but because it is right.

That is why so many Palestinians in Gaza marched, despite the danger, to the port. They came not only to welcome Madleen, but to reject Israel’s seizure of the ship. They came to say: We are not invisible. We are not alone. We are seen.

Just days before the ship was stopped, another form of protest had begun on land.

In early May 2025, the al-Sumud Caravan departed from Tunis. Dozens of buses set off in a civilian-led initiative to reach Gaza by land. Crowds gathered to send them off, Tunisians and Algerians standing side by side, waving flags and chanting in unison. This is not a state-sponsored delegation or symbolic display. It is an act of direct presence rooted in the understanding that the siege is not just military but also spatial. It is meant to render Gaza unreachable.

As of now, the caravan has not arrived. Its path is uncertain. Participants are navigating a complex political terrain across borders, and it is unclear how far they will be allowed to go. But still, they move. Because doing nothing would mean accepting the logic of Gaza’s isolation. Because walking toward the border, even if stopped, is a refusal to normalize it.

These acts of solidarity are not appreciated because they will break the siege tomorrow. They matter because they break the spell that Israel is unstoppable — and for us, that the world is unreachable.