Thunberg ahead of Gaza flotilla launch: ‘The story here is how the world can be silent’

At a press conference before she leaves on a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid and activists from Barcelona, Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg says the aim is to draw attention to the crisis in Gaza.

“The question here today is not why we are sailing. This story is not at all about the mission that we are about to embark upon,” says Thunberg, having previously told AFP the goal was to bring in aid and open up a humanitarian corridor to break an “illegal” and “inhuman” blockade of Gaza.

“The story here is about Palestine. The story here is how people are being deliberately deprived of the very basic means to survive. The story here is how the world can be silent,” she tells reporters.

Thunberg was detained and then deported by Israel after the IDF intercepted a previous Gaza-bound boat she joined in June.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, the largest to date, is expected to include dozens of boats carrying aid and hundreds of people from 44 countries. Sumud means “perseverance” in Arabic.

The new flotilla comes after a UN hunger monitor said last week that parts of Gaza were suffering from famine. Israel, which stopped the flow of aid into Gaza for nearly three months until mid-May, has rejected the report as a “modern blood libel” and accused Hamas of looting aid deliveries.

Israel will soon slow or halt humanitarian aid into parts of northern Gaza, an Israeli official said yesterday, ahead of the coming expansion of its offensive in Gaza City in an attempt to cripple Hamas.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, told The Associated Press that Israel will stop airdrops over Gaza City in the coming days and reduce the arrival of aid trucks into the northern part of the Strip as it prepares to encourage the evacuation of hundreds of thousands of residents southward.