AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

A group of international activists from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition are sailing across the Mediterranean to Gaza to challenge Israel’s blockade, illegal under international law. Over a month ago, a prior Freedom Flotilla boat, the Madleen, was raided by Israeli forces and seized in international waters. The current mission is called the Handala, for the children of Gaza.

The mission comes as the starvation crisis in the besieged strip is rapidly worsening. According to Save the Children, nearly every child in Gaza — there are more than 1.1 million — is at risk of starvation. The Handala launched from the southern port city of Gallipoli in Italy five days ago. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition says the boat is carrying lifesaving humanitarian aid and, quote, “a direct political message: the blockade must end,” unquote.

There are 19 crew members, two journalists on board. Among those sailing are Chris Smalls, founder of the Amazon Labor Union, and our next guest, Huwaida Arraf, a Palestinian American human rights attorney, steering committee member of the Freedom Flotilla. She’s on board the boat.

Huwaida, thank you for joining us again on Democracy Now! Talk about what you faced — you said that the boat was sabotaged twice — and what you’re hoping to accomplish.

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Thank you so much for having me, Amy. I recall talking to you on our first mission to try to break the siege in Gaza back in 2008. It’s unfortunate that we are still sailing to do so because our governments have refused to act. The blockade was illegal in 2008. It is illegal and deadly and part of a genocide now.

Yes, over the years that we’ve been sailing, Israel has repeatedly attempted to sabotage our vessels and our missions, and at times it has succeeded in delaying us, but not in stopping us. Before leaving Gallipoli on Sunday, we were subjected to two very serious incidents, which we are asking for an investigation, because they are very unusual, and they came on the heels of Israel announcing that it was trying — exerting all efforts to prevent us from leaving port.

The first of those was a rope that was tightly wound around the propeller of the ship. And while that sometimes happens, the way this rope was wound and attached to chains that sunk in the sea was quite unusual.

The second was as we ordered a water truck so that we can fill the tanks of the ship, the water tanks, with water that we could use throughout the journey. It is seven, eight days before we reach from Gallipoli to Gaza. And instead of water, the truck brought sulfuric acid. And luckily, we had not connected the hose to the boat. But our crew had smelled something, and when they turned on — they turned on the faucet, they were splashed and burned. That could have been catastrophic.

So, you know, and Israel announced that it was trying to stop us in various ways. It has sabotaged before. We suspect it was another attempted sabotage. But we are now focusing on just getting to Gaza. We got out of port safely. Everyone is safe, and we are focused on trying to get to Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, can you talk about what your plans are at this moment? About how many hours are you from Gaza? And compare it to the Madleen, the ship that attempted before. Among those on that ship was Greta Thunberg, when the Israeli forces raided the ship and took everyone off and ultimately deported them.

HUWAIDA ARRAF: Yes, currently, we are approximately two days from reaching Gaza. We are less than 24 hours from the point where Israel attacked the Madleen and abducted everyone from international waters, taking them against their will to Israel.

You know, over the years, Israel has tried various methods to stop us. It has been very violent, from attacking, beating, abducting, arresting, jailing and even killing our volunteers. In 2010, a flotilla that I know you also covered, and I was on, Israel killed 10 of our volunteers. But that did not stop us. And it’s not going to stop us now. Yes, Israel attacked and abducted the activists aboard the Madleen. One month before that, they bombed one of our ships that was preparing to leave from the — from Malta. It actually violated European airspace to attack a civilian humanitarian vessel. And right now we know that this is very much a possibility. This is a scenario, that we may be attacked by armed, violent commando forces that will overtake our ship and abduct us all. We hope that’s not the case.

We’ve been putting out calls specifically as American citizens a couple of days ago. We have seven American citizens out of the 21 on this ship. We put out a call to President Trump, the U.S. government, the U.S. media to stop enabling Israel’s genocide, stop participating in the genocide. This is not what the American people want. And we are sailing in accordance with international law. Even if it wasn’t acting to uphold the rights of the Palestinian people in Gaza, even if the U.S. government was not interested in refraining from participating in a genocide, the U.S. government should care about protecting the rights of U.S. citizens. We are sailing. We are civilians. We are unarmed. We are carrying humanitarian aid. And we are sailing from international waters into Palestinian waters, which Israel has no right to control. An attack on us would be an attack on American citizens.

We expect our politicians to speak up. But, sadly, we know that the administration, the U.S. Congress, they are not listening to the American people. Poll after poll is showing that the American people do not support funding this genocide, and yet our government continues to vote to send more money to starve and maim and behead children — of course, more than children, and civilians, but the children are the most severely impacted from the bombing, the maiming and from the — from this deliberate starvation, from this engineered famine. The children, the infants are the first to — their bodies can’t take it.

And so, this is why we have called our vessel — it’s called the Handala, which is a 10-year-old Palestinian child, a cartoon of a 10-year-old Palestinian child, but also filled the boat with things for children, not only food, but baby formula and diapers and stuffed animals that were donated from children in Italy to children in Gaza, in a message of solidarity, love and hope. Of course, it doesn’t come close to meeting the needs, but our message is that the siege, this illegal blockade must be broken.

It’s not just about humanitarian aid. Yes, Palestinians in Gaza need humanitarian aid, but that is a deliberately created situation, humanitarian catastrophe that’s been engineered. And we need to fight the policy. And the policy is right now that the entire world is allowing Israel — has allowed Israel to turn Gaza into an extermination camp. And they’re standing by, letting Israel control what gets in and out of a people that they are actively annihilating. This is not something we accept.

AMY GOODMAN: Huwaida Arraf, we want to thank you so much for being with us, Palestinian American human rights attorney, speaking to us on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla. The ship is named Handala. We will continue to follow this. They are expected to arrive in Gaza sometime around Sunday, if Israel allows them to land.