7/17/2025–|Last update: 15:13 (Mecca time)
Participants in the Freedom Fleet trip on board the “Handala” ship continue their preparation for sailing towards the Gaza Strip on a trip that will be launched tomorrow, Friday, from the port of Gallipoli in southern Italy.
A week before reaching the shores of Gaza – is involved in this trip – about 20 defenders of the Palestinian cause, among them the deputy in the French parliament for the France Party, Gabriel Catala and her colleague from the party itself in the European Parliament Emma Furn, as well as international activists from the United States, Norway, Canada, Australia and Ireland.
Al -Jazeera correspondent Mohamed Al -Baqali said that preparing for the trip includes the preparation of the participants psychologically for a difficult journey and may be dangerous, in addition to preparations from the legal side and confirming keenness that the ship falls within the peaceful resistance, because the matter relates to a legal trip aimed at breaking an illegal siege imposed by Israel on Gaza, according to the International Court of Justice.
The ship, Handalla, sailed on July 13 from the port of Sarkoussa in Sicily, and dozens of people gathered in the port carrying Palestinian flags and keffiyah and raising slogans calling for freedom for Palestine.
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The ship took its name from the character “Handala”, which is a symbolic Palestinian icon created by the Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al -Ali in 1969, and is considered a symbol of the Palestinian resistance and resistance.
Handala embodies a ten -year -old child standing idle and turns his back to the world, expressing his rejection of injustice and normalization with political solutions that do not achieve justice for the Palestinians.
According to the Freedom Flotilla Alliance, the aim of this trip is a new attempt to break the illegal siege imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip, which led to an unprecedented human tragedy.
The International Committee to break the siege on Gaza confirmed in previous statements that this popular and international action comes as an extension of previous ships such as “conscience” and “Madeleine”, and an introduction to a greater solidarity wave during this year.
On June 9, the Israeli army seized the “Madeleine” ship within the “Freedom Fleet” from international waters, which is on its way to the besieged Gaza Strip to transport humanitarian aid, and arrested 12 international activists on board, and later Israel left activists, the condition of pledging not to return to it.