Posted on September 6, 2025
Tunis, Tunisia – At 61 Street station, in downtown Tunis, volunteers are busy receiving and documenting donations for Flotilla Maghreb Sumud – one of the four organizing groups of Flatilla Global Sumud, aimed at breaking the headquarters of Israel in Gaza.
The initial plan was that the boats are on Tunis on Thursday. But Tunisian boats will have to wait until the Spanish flotilla – led by, among others, the Swedish activist from the Climate Greta Thunberg – who left Barcelona on Monday arrives, having been delayed following a storm.
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Another flotilla starting from Sicily should join the Tunisian on Sunday, with all the ships that starting together towards the eastern Mediterranean.
On board, ships will be doctors, activists, convoys, lawyers and influencers on social networks. Inside the holds: cardboard boxes full of medication and milk for infants – and some touching messages and gifts from Tunisian children to their counterparts in Gaza.
The seven fleets that have set sail in Gaza since 2010 have been intercepted or attacked by the Israeli army even before reaching the territorial waters of Gaza. On May 2, the consciousness of the ship was hit twice by Israeli armed drones when it was only 25 kilometers (16 miles) of the banks of Malta.
Rare to go
In -depth preparations for the flotilla are underway in many Tunisian cities, including Tunis, Bizerte, Beja, Sousse, Sfax and Gabes. For many volunteers at work in Tunisia donations, their links with Gaza are deep, and many felt helpless after looking at almost two years of Israeli Gaza bombardment, killing more than 62,000 Palestinians.
Many here remember the local political activist Hatem Laayouni, the efforts of joining it to break it to break the Israeli seat of Gaza aboard the Handala mission in July, as well as the Sumud convoy led by Tunisian who tried to spend the previous month.
The two attempts seem to have made Gaza feel at hand to make many volunteer to provide and sail in the last flotilla. “Tunisians no longer think that Palestine is far away. Palestine is close. It is certainly not far away, ”explains a volunteer called Sahraoui.
Volunteers from all of Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States participate and know that they do not have time to lose, especially since Gaza is now officially in famine.
The team behind the Maghreb flotilla worked quickly. On August 22, the Flatilla organizing committee launched a fundraising campaign and a call for donations in kind. Ten days later, the ships were bought.
“I cannot share the number of boats because this is confidential information, but we are good at the boats,” said Ghassan Boughdiri, member of the organizing committee, in Tel Aviv Tribune, adding: “We have the exact number we need.”
Boughdiri has also confirmed that the names and the number of participants would be communicated once the flotilla is ready to navigate.
Donations
Large quantities of donations, such as medicine and milk for infants, have already been collected and wrapped in cardboard boxes, with organizers ready to provide more than Israel raises its blockade.
With most of the preparation work carried out, only the final key remains: equipping Wi-Fi ships, cameras, life jackets and other safety tools.
And for that, Tunisians continue to reach long queues at Street Station to give money and any other gift they can.
“The particular thing about this campaign is the number of people who have come to make donations,” said Boughdiri. “We had people who bring five and 10 dinars ($ 1.70 to $ 3.40). If your wages of the day are 20 dinars ($ 6.80), these five dinars are so precious for us. This shows that we have managed to act collectively to help our people in Gaza. ”
With support for the Flotilla Rally of steam in the world and more ships announcing their participation, there is hope that the world will be forced to act if Israel tries to stop the boats violently.
But even if the sending of humanitarian aid on Flotillas in crisis areas is approved by international law, it is even more likely that Israel will use violence.
“This is the largest aid flotilla in Gaza of all time,” said Sahraoui. “No similar mission has been launched before. So we don’t really know how they will react. I hope we will reach Gaza possibly.”
