Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg said she will join the next Soumoud flotilla intended to head to Gaza, in their latest attempt to break Israel’s siege on the war-battered and starving Gaza Strip.
Thunberg said that she and the Soumoud crew will be "launching the biggest attempt ever to break the illegal Israeli siege over Gaza with dozens of boats sailing from Spain" on 31 August.
"We will meet dozens more on 4 September sailing from Tunisia and other ports. We are also mobilising more than 44 countries on simultaneous demonstrations and actions to break complicity in solidarity with the Palestinian people," she wrote on her Instagram account over the weekend.
The 22-year-old had already attempted to set sail to Gaza as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel Madleen back in June, the goal of which was to deliver aid to the besieged Gaza Strip. Thunberg had made the attempt to reach Gaza alongside French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan and Al Jazeera journalist Omar Faiad.
Activists from Germany, France, Brazil, Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands also took part.
The activists, including Thunberg, had their vessel seized by Israeli naval forces before they were detained, brought to Israel and subsequently deported. Their treatment and Israel’s illegal detention of the activists was condemned globally.
In the same video published over the weekend, several activists called on others to join the flotilla, dubbed as the event as the "biggest international solidarity effort ever since Israel imposed its siege on the Gaza Strip in 2007".
The Soumoud flotilla has called itself "a unified effort from coalitions, organisations and everyday people from across the world who have shown unwavering solidity with the people of Palestine".
In the video, the activists including Thunberg described the ongoing atrocities taking place in the Palestinian enclave over the past 22 months.
"That’s why the free people of the world are standing up and sailing forward and we care calling upon you to join this initiative," one of the activists said.
The Maghreb organisers behind the original Somoud Convoy, which initially set off from Tunisia in June this year in attempt to reach Gaza, have also called on volunteers to join the initiative.
Dr. Mohamed Amin Bennour, head of the global flotilla's medical committee and member of the supervisory and management board, told Arabi21 that "efforts are currently intense" to recruit volunteers to join the convoy.
"I call on everyone who sees us to contact us and help us. The urgent needs now are for ship captains and crews, of which we have a significant shortage in Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, and the rest of the participating countries."
"One slogan, one goal, one access point, which is the steadfast, patient, and struggling Gaza Strip. One goal: breaking the siege. The second goal is a humanitarian corridor to deliver aid to Gaza and break the siege in the face of this crime and this Zionist-American arrogance that is happening to our brothers in Palestine, specifically in Gaza."
The Soumoud convoy, which departed Tunisia in mid-June, could not proceed past Libya after being blocked by authorities there. Several activists, mostly hailing from Tunisia but also from Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania, said they were mistreated and deported by authorities in the country's east .