LIGHTS (AND SAILS) FOCUSED ON P
@LESTINE
by Italo Rondinella
The humanitarian boats of the Glob
@lSumudFlotill @, which left in mid-April 2026 from Barcelona and Augusta, Sicily, after stopping at the Greek islands of Crete and Syros, arrived in Marmaris, southwestern Turkey, on the night of May 9.
There they joined the Turkish delegation waiting for them to discuss routes and strategies after the Israeli navy boarded the flotill@ in international waters between April 29 and 30.
On May 12, P
@lestini @n activist S
@if @buKeshek - who holds Spanish and Swedish citizenship - joined the mission. Alongside Brazilian activist Thi
@go @vila , he is a member of the Flotill@’s steering committee. Both were arrested after the boarding operation and detained in an Israeli prison for eleven days before being released without charges on May 10.
I came to Marmaris to meet the activists involved in the mission and understand their motivations.
I spoke with Anne Rochat, a Swiss performance artist who also took part in the September 2025 mission. She told me she can no longer live inside what she calls a “bubble of privilege,” disconnected from her need to do something concrete against the violence and injustice faced by P
@lestini @ns , while also giving deeper meaning to her own humanity.
I also spoke with Caoimhe Butterly, an Irish psychotherapist with years of experience in conflict zones, who was wounded in the leg by Israeli gunfire while protecting P
@lestini @n children in Jenin in 2002.
I met Majorcan activist Angel Benitez, second captain of the intercepted boat, and S
@if @buKeshek , who had just rejoined the group after his release.
From these conversations emerged a shared awareness that they will once again be prevented from breaking the Israeli naval blockade along Gaz@’s coast - imposed in 2009 - and therefore from delivering humanitarian aid. Yet their main goal remains to keep the world’s attention - governments and public opinion alike - focused on P
@lestine .
_
Many thanks to
@amantovanixx ,
@rochatanne ,
@caoimhebutterly , Ángel Benítez, S
@if @buKeshek ,
@veroveritovolando and all the beautiful members of the Glob
@lSumudFlotill @
