The Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition boat ‘Handala’ is set to arrive at the Grand Harbour tomorrow, Tuesday, remaining here for a few days before continuing its journey towards the Gaza Stip, activist Col. Ann Wright confimed with The Journal. On board will be people coming from all the four corners of the world who oppose the inhumanity of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.

Ann Wright is a retired US Army Colonel and a former US diplomat. She resigned from the US Government in 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.  She has been active in Palestinian solidarity since 2009, helping take groups to Gaza as an organiser for the Gaza Freedom March and on the 2010, 2011, 2015 and 2016 Gaza Flotillas.

Originally the ‘Handala’ was scheduled to arrive in Malta on Sunday, but the visit was delayed due to technical difficulties while in Messina, Sicily. Once in Malta, the flotilla team will address a press conference. The current mission started last May in Olso, Norway, and it’s been to Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from different parts of the world, working together to end the illegal Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip. It was formed after the 2010 Freedom Flotilla mission, when Israeli forces killed nine civilians and pirated flotilla ships in international water. 

“We will sail until Palestine is free. We have for the past 15 years challenged Israel with 35 boats to break the naval blockade of Gaza,” Col. Wright said. “We want to remind everyone of what’s happening in Gaza. There’s no food there, people are starving, and they are being bombed every single day. We ask you, the Maltese, to please support the people of Gaza as they endure this horrific genocide.”

Andre Callus from Moviment Graffitti, a prominent left-wing pressure group based in Malta, said the NGO supports the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition as it shares its belief that the Palestinians– who are currently being massacred in “a genocide supported and incentivised by the West” – deserve justice and have a right to be a free people in their own land.

Once the ‘Handala’ leaves Malta and arrives in Gaza, it will physically challenge Israel’s illegal maritime blockade using non-violent tactics.