By Greta Berlin
I have returned to the States to be part of the land crew, but my heart is with those civilians, once again sailing on creaky, old boats to Gaza because governments have refused to stop a genocide.
On August 23, 2008, 44 ordinary people from 17 different countries sailed from Cyprus to Gaza on two small wooden boats, the FREE GAZA and the LIBERTY. We did what our governments would not do – we broke the illegal Siege of Gaza.
When we arrived safely in Gaza on August 23, after over 30 hours at sea, we were welcomed by tens of thousands of Palestinians lining the shore.
This week, I stood at the shores of Tunis and watched as boats from 44 countries began to leave for Gaza.
At 84, I was now the oldest activist and knew it was impossible for me to get on a boat and sail. I thought about Hedy Epstein, who, at 84 stepped down from sailing in 2008, her heart broken that she couldn’t sail with us. It was now my turn to wave ‘good-bye’ to the hundreds of young activists filled with the same kind of enthusiastic dread we felt 17 years ago. My eyes filled with tears as I remembered.
Four of us Americans, Mary Hughes Thompson, Paul Larudee, Riad Hamad, and I had begun this movement in the fall of 2006, and we had succeeded beyond our wildest expectations; we’d actually made it to Gaza.
When we left six days later, we made the Palestinians three promises:
One, we would go back to our countries and talk about what we had witnessed.
Two, we would take out Palestinians who needed medical treatment or had fellowships – in our five successful trips, 17 Palestinians accompanied us back to Cyprus.
And three, we would return.
Since Israel’s so-called Operation Cast Lead in December 2008-January 2009, no boats have sailed into the shores of this tiny enclave, the only territory on the Mediterranean that has no right to its own waters and no right to fish beyond a tightly patrolled 6 miles off its coast.
Israel began stealing our boats and kidnapping our passengers in June 2009. We decided we needed a bigger flotilla and spent a year organizing the first Freedom Flotilla, which left in May 2010.
Israel murdered ten of the passengers on board the Turkish Mavi Marmara, as well as injuring 60 others on all six boats. It didn’t stop us, and a year later, from Greece, we were ready to sail with seven boats. This time, the Greek coast guard stopped us, as Israel began outsourcing the occupation to other countries around the Mediterranean.
Since 2010, the Freedom Flotilla has headed to Gaza 15 times in flotillas as large as 8 boats and as small as one. Our boats have been stopped by Turkiye, Sicily, and Malta. The ones who were able to continue were brutally stopped by Israel, passengers were roughed up, kidnapped, thrown into prison, and the boats were stolen.
Yet, we continue to sail.
Since August 31, 44 countries and hundreds of people have been sailing to Gaza to break Israel’s illegal siege, open a corridor and deliver humanitarian aid. The Free Gaza movement has morphed into the Freedom Flotilla, which now supports the Global Sumud Flotilla. What had begun as a movement of Internationals from the West has become an initiative of the Global South.
As I write this story, 40 boats are on the move. They’ve come from Spain, Tunisia, Italy, Greece, and Libya. Trying to organize a mission of this size has tested the patience of everyone involved. I sat through the training this time, an expansion of the training we had put together 17 years ago.
Boats were late leaving, and organizers were moving passengers around as some boats were no longer seaworthy or may have been sabotaged. Those of us who were “voyage veterans” kept reassuring a new set of activists that we had only left on time once in 25 voyages. The specter of Israel hangs over everyone like a shroud, because we know that if they can commit genocide for the past two years, they can probably murder us once more. Yet, we sail.
As of this writing on September 26, the boats are just off the coast of Greece, a country that stopped us once before. I’ve returned back to the States to be part of the land crew, but my heart is with those civilians, once again sailing on creaky, old boats to Gaza because governments have refused to stop a genocide.
– Greta Berlin is an American teacher, author and international activist. She has been a spokesperson for the Free Gaza Movement (FGM), which she co-founded in 2006. She contributed this article to the Palestine Chronicle.
Here is an update to my orignal article.
Today, October 3, 2025, the last of the boats have been intercepted, the passengers kidnapped, and our boats stolen. Early this morning, I was inundated with questions, “What was the point?” “Why spend so much money and effort on a mission you knew would fail?” “What did you accomplish?”
If governments won’t stand up and stop Israeli war crimes, it’s up to civilian society to stop the slaughter of civilians. None of us wants to board rickety boats and sail, only to be kidnapped and arrested by the IOF, but after watching two years of Israeli genocide, civilians from 44 nations said, “Enough. We’re sailing to Gaza,” and three months later, we sailed