On 22 August, the United Nations declared a famine in Gaza. More than half a million Palestinians are facing catastrophic famine conditions amid Israeli genocide, while authorities in Gaza report over 10,000 additional deaths and 45,000 injuries since the collapse of the ceasefire in March — numbers that represent a significant undercount of the true devastation.

In response, a historic coalition is mobilizing in the Mediterranean Sea — to break the blockade that created these unbearable conditions, to deliver critical humanitarian aid to Gaza’s people, and to signal that people from around the globe refuse to be complicit in the genocide.

The Global Sumud Flotilla sets off on 31 August and 4 September from ports in Spain and Tunisia. It forms part of the largest civilian humanitarian fleet ever assembled for Gaza — an unprecedented union of major grassroots movements. The Progressive International will be joining the mission.

“We sail because governments have failed. We sail because silence enables atrocity. We sail to defend international law and uphold human dignity,” Melanie Schweizer, a lawyer and Member of the Steering Committee of the Global Sumud Flotilla, wrote for the Wire this week. **

The coalition sails with five key demands: an immediate and permanent ceasefire, lifting the unlawful blockade, guaranteed humanitarian access by sea and land, accountability for violations of international law, and Palestinian self-determination.

This mission comes at a critical time.

Since October 2023, over two million Palestinians have faced indiscriminate bombardment, mass displacement, and systematic, deliberate starvation. Even as they continue to resist the occupation, the people of Gaza face an increasingly desperate situation. The true death toll is impossible to measure, but existing studies point to hundreds of thousands of people whose lives were cut short by the Israeli regime’s violence and the deprivation it has caused.

One in three children are acutely malnourished, and at least 63 malnutrition-related deaths occurred in July alone, including 24 children under five. Hospitals lack basic medical supplies. Families are forced to drink contaminated water and scavenge for food. And people seeking aid at so-called ‘humanitarian distribution sites’ are routinely massacred by US and Israeli bullets.

The Flotilla aims not only to challenge that blockade, but also to call out the governments who refuse to meet their obligations under international law. Every nation has a legal obligation to prevent genocide. And yet, apart from the regional resistance in Iran, Lebanon, or Yemen — and initiatives like The Hague Group — states around the world remain inactive, or outright complicit.

As recent history has shown, the Flotilla’s mission is not without danger. In June 2025, Israeli occupation forces seized the Madleen, a ship carrying aid for Gaza in international waters, and detained prominent climate activist Greta Thunberg and other protesters. And, in July 2025, another ship was intercepted. Amazon union organizer Chris Smalls was arrested along with 20 other activists while attempting to deliver aid to Gaza. Israeli forces surrounded, beat, and choked the US labor leader as they unlawfully boarded the aid ship Handala.

These arrests represent a clear pattern: peaceful humanitarian missions met with violence, detention, deportation, and the kind of racially-motivated violence that has long been widespread throughout the settler society.

But they also represent the threat that popular organizing poses to the colonial project — a clear sign that the tide is turning. That is why, as this historic fleet sets out towards Gaza, it carries more than food and medicine — it carries a message that the world's people will not tolerate a genocide carried out in their name.

The people of Palestine have shown the world what steadfastness — sumud — means in the face of genocidal violence. The Global Sumud Flotilla shows that they are not alone in their struggle.

Latest from the Movement

The People’s Conference for Palestine

A coalition that includes PI members, the Palestinian Youth Movement and National Students for Justice in Palestine is hosting the second People’s Conference in Palestine on 29-31 August in Detroit, Michigan, USA.

This annual conference is organized by Palestinian leaders in the movement, with a political program designed to address the current political moment and to bring together critical voices in the struggle.

This year’s conference aims to support movements and organizers in strengthening their efforts to challenge the genocide in Gaza, including by directly supporting the Palestinian people and further isolating and exposing Zionism.

You can read more about the conference on its website, and visit our social media channels and website for coverage.

Art of the Week

Electrical Gaza, a film by Rosalind Nashashibi, documents Gaza in the days before Israel's military offensive Operation Protective Edge in the summer of 2014. The film incorporates animation, 16mm film footage, music, silence and the artists’ own breathing to portray how it felt to be in Gaza at that time, which Nashashibi described as “a charged mixture of liberatory elation and deep anxiety.”

Nashashibi is a London based painter and filmmaker of Palestinian and Northern Irish heritage. Her numerous accolades include being the first woman to win the Beck’s Futures prize, receiving a Turner Prize nomination, and representing Scotland in the 52nd Venice Biennale. Her work has been included in Documenta 14, Manifesta 7, the Nordic Triennial, and Sharjah 10. Electrical Gaza was produced by Kate Parker with cinematography by Emma Dalesman. Much of what is documented in the film is now destroyed.