The Third Gaza Freedom Flotilla will demonstrate peaceful and nonviolent resistance if the Israeli army decides to confront it, a Canadian representative of a vessel set to join the flotilla said Wednesday.
In remarks made to journalists in the Greek city of Crete, Ehab Lotayef said that the main goal of the flotilla was to reach the under siege Gaza Strip, and not Israel.
“Our mission is not a humanitarian initiative, it is a political mission,” Lotayef said, adding that it was a peaceful mission aimed to attract the world’s attention to the Israeli blockade of Gaza, as well as to ensure an end to it.
He described the Israeli blockade as “inhumane and illegitimate”.
About the measures the flotilla participants would take if Israel forced it to stop, he said that everyone would refrain from violence.
“We are not entering Israeli land, our goal is to enter the territory of Gaza,” he said. “If the Israeli army decides to stop us, they will face a peaceful resistance. However, we do not believe they have the right to stop us,” he added.
Lotayef also said that entering Gaza would be a moral victory; however, that was not their main goal.
“The real success will be the removal of the blockade,” he said.
He said that the Canadian vessel was ready to join the flotilla, but avoided giving an exact date about when that would happen.
Vice-President of the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza, Ziad al-Aloul, said that even if the flotilla was stopped by Israel, similar actions would continue as long as the blockade remained in place.
“One of our purposes of this initiative has already been accomplished, as people have begun to talk about the blockade of Gaza,” al-Aloul said.
He said that it was also possible that Israel may not only stop the flotilla, but also forcefully take it within its custody into its harbors.
“We will continue this mission as we believe in it,” he said, adding: “We have already starting planning a next similar action”.
Tunisia's former president Dr. Mohamed al-Moncef al-Marzouki and a number of Arab and European activists have arrived in Greece to join the flotilla.
The Third Freedom Flotilla has made several stops on its way to Gaza, including in Greece, Spain and France.
Human rights activists from world over and generations are aboard the Third Freedom Flotilla, including the Marianne Boat, which departed from the Swedish Gothenburg port on May 10.
The Marianne Boat is joining other ships en route and plans to reach Gaza in the coming days. Boats from the Canadian Boat to Gaza, Greece Ship to Gaza, Freedom Flotilla Italia, Norway Ship to Gaza, South Africa Palestine Solidarity Alliance, Spain Rumbo a Gaza and Turkey's Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) are part of the third attempt.
The first Gaza Freedom Flotilla expedition in May 2010 ended in tragedy after Israeli commandos killed eight Turkish nationals and an American of Turkish origin in a raid on the flotilla ship, Mavi Marmara. Another person of Turkish nationality died in a hospital in 2014 after being in coma for almost four years.
The second Gaza Freedom Flotilla took place in 2012, which too was turned back.
Israel has maintained a tight blockade of the Gaza Strip since 2007, when Palestinian group Hamas took over control of the territory, a move which has ravaged its economy and shaved off around 50 percent off its Gross Domestic Product.
In July and August of 2014, more than 2,100 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were killed and 11,000 injured -- mostly women and children -- during Israel's 51-day Operation Protective Edge.
