A new ship from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition has set sail from Italy with hopes of breaking the siege on Gaza. The Handala’s voyage comes just over a month after Israeli forces raided and seized an earlier aid ship, the Madleen, in international waters. This is the Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, who was detained last month by Israeli forces during the raid.

Thiago Ávila: “We believe that if it was not the Madleen, then the Handala; if it’s not the Handala, the next mission, that will be bigger, will break the siege of Gaza, because a regime that depends on starving children to death and bombing hospitals, schools, shelters and residential areas to stay on top of people cannot survive. So, we understand that the whole world is uniting against the genocide. The peoples of the world, on a planet of 8 billion people, the vast majority, they are so against this violation, and they want to do something. So that’s why we are here, to do something together. This boat goes with the hearts and minds of millions of people behind it.”