AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Spain and Italy are sending naval vessels to protect the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla after activists said that drones repeatedly attacked their boats near Greece on Wednesday. In a statement, the flotilla organizers said, quote, “Multiple drones, unidentified objects dropped, communications jammed and explosions heard from a number of boats.” Activists also said the strikes on Wednesday marked the seventh attack on the flotilla. The Global Sumud Flotilla set sail after Israel blocked two earlier attempts by activists to reach Gaza by sea.

AMY GOODMAN: Passengers aboard the flotilla — there are many boats — include the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and Nelson Mandela’s grandson, the South African MP Mandla Mandela.

We’re going now to the flotilla to speak with David Adler, the co-general coordinator of the Progressive International. He has a new piece in The Guardian headlined “We Are Sailing to Gaza. Here’s Why.”

David, we see your hair blowing. We see you’re on the ship. Can you explain what has taken place? For people who haven’t followed this flotilla, what is it? And the significance of Italy and Spain sending their naval ships to protect you?

DAVID ADLER: This Global Sumud Flotilla is the largest humanitarian convoy in history to traverse the Mediterranean Sea, from Barcelona to Tunis to Sicily to here in Crete and onward to Gaza, with a mission that’s very simple, but very urgent, which is to break the siege and to establish a permanent humanitarian corridor at sea to deliver critical aid to the starving people of Palestine.

It is not an exaggeration, Amy, to say that this unprecedented mission, whose vessels number greater than the sum of all previous efforts, from 2008 forward, of Freedom Flotilla and its affiliates to try to reach Gaza, has faced bureaucratic sabotage, has suffered from drone attacks in the port of Tunis when we were on the boats and we were attacked with incendiary devices. But most terrifyingly, just here at sea, before we entered near Tikrit, was two nights ago, when for several hours there were bombardments. I mean, you have to imagine, under the cover of darkness, we can’t see these drones. We can hear them, but there’s no lights on them, and all we can hear are the sounds of explosions. All we have is CCTV footage of the bombs being dropped onto the boats, with an obvious intent to damage beyond repair these sailboats, and therefore to deter the mission from going forward. In many cases, that was successful. Some of the boats were damaged beyond repair. And others, we were able to repair them.

I think there’s one little detail that your listeners and your viewers might be interested in, which is, as they’re deploying this illegal, deeply criminal act of violence against a civilian humanitarian mission like ours, they also jammed our communication channels. With what? With ABBA, with “Lay Your Love on Me,” which, of course, is a reference, a not-so-subtle reference, to the Swedish activist aboard, Greta Thunberg, as you mentioned in the introduction to the segment, Amy.

So, it is in the wake of those really terrifying attacks, that kept us up all night and put our lives at risk, that we put out a message to the world, in particular, a message to the governments of the Mediterranean, not just to send a declaration in support of the flotilla or in recognition of our diplomatic or humanitarian ambitions, to witness, to send boats [inaudible] not to protect our lives, but to ensure the success of our mission, which is a [inaudible] one, is to set up a new corridor to reach the people of Gaza, when the points on land have been so famously, so infamously blocked from access.

AMY GOODMAN: How many boats are there, David?

DAVID ADLER: Right now we’re about 40 boats that have joined together from the three fleets — Barcelona; Tunis, or the Maghreb, fleet; and Italian fleet. And we’re meeting six more boats that are now coming from Greece. We should be between 40 and 50 boats — again, unprecedented number of humanitarian vessels, that is now setting sail on the final leg to reach the shores of Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: David, you’re breaking up a little, so we’re going to fix that sound. And while we do, we’re going to go to who you just referenced, the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg. This is Greta speaking when the flotilla stopped in Tunisia.

GRETA THUNBERG: The messages we have to Palestinians in Gaza are many, first that I’m absolutely disgusted and appalled to live in a world where our people in power every day are betraying Palestinians, and how there are so many people who can seemingly just accept the extreme injustice and the mass slaughtering of people without doing anything. So, for that, I am heartbroken. And this is not about me or my feelings at all, but I’m heartbroken to live in that world. …

What is happening now, for example, in Gaza City, should not come as a surprise, because Israel have been very clear from the beginning that this is their intent. They have genocidal intent that they want to take over the Gaza Strip, which is such a serious war crime. And the world has not listened. Right now people are more and more waking up, but at what cost? …

What is happening is, of course, an attack on Palestinians, the Palestinian identity and the Palestinian nation and all the countless of people whose suffering is being reduced to numbers and U.N. resolutions. But this is also an attack on humanity, on international law, on every sense of humanity we have left. And that is a huge, huge risk. Of course, all right, “risk” is not the right word. It is a threat to everything we hold dear. …

What we are claiming to do is to act in line with international law. We are hearing the calls from Palestinians, who are urging the people of the world to step up, to end our complicity. And we are doing a very small part of that, the bare minimum, to act to uphold international law, human rights. …

Any risk we could be subjected to is, of course, nothing to what Palestinians are risking every day just trying to survive. For example, the extremely brave Palestinian journalists, who we are all in debt for, for them reporting about what is happening on the ground, they risk their lives every single day to tell the story. And the biggest risk is how we have allowed fascism and racism to escalate to such an extent that history keeps repeating itself.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the climate activist Greta Thunberg. She’s one of many activists on board some 40 ships in the Sumud Flotilla that have [been] hit by drones. Drop Site News is reporting Trump envoy Tom Barrack admits Israel bombed the Global Sumud Flotilla ships in Tunisia earlier this month. That’s where Greta was speaking. We’re talking to, live on the ship, David Adler, co-general coordinator of the Progressive International.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, David Adler, just before we finish, if you could say, what exactly are you carrying on the ship to Gaza, and what are you calling for now?

DAVID ADLER: We are carrying — these ships — some of them are humble motor cruisers, like the family boat where I’m stationed, the lead vessel of the broader fleet; some of them are even humbler sailing boats — are packed to gills with basic and critical humanitarian aid, baby formula, medicine, food and water.

However, we’re not naive about the scale of the suffering in Gaza and the scale of the humanitarian crisis, that requires a much larger and more ambitious response by the states, whose good-faith obligations under international law require them to respond, on the Genocide Convention. So, that’s why I put so much emphasis on this infrastructural element of our mission. We are not here to drop the aid and go home and pat ourselves on the back.

AMY GOODMAN: We have five seconds, David.

DAVID ADLER: We are here to establish a humanitarian corridor for states themselves to assume their responsibilities and to deliver the aid at the scale that Gaza requires.

AMY GOODMAN: David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, one of the people on board the Sumud Flotilla headed to break the siege in Gaza. Spanish and Italian naval ships have gone to protect them. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, for another edition of Democracy Now!