Gaza City [Gaza], September 7: At 61 Station Street, downtown Tunis, volunteers are busy receiving and documenting donations for the Maghreb Sumud Flotilla - one of four organising groups of the Global Sumud Flotilla, aiming to break Israel's siege on Gaza.
The initial plan was for the boats to set sail from Tunis on Thursday. But the Tunisian boats will have to wait until the Spanish flotilla - led by, among others, the Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg - that sets off from Barcelona on Monday arrives, having been delayed as a result of a storm.
Another flotilla leaving from Sicily is expected to join the Tunisian one on Sunday, with all the vessels then departing together towards the eastern Mediterranean.
On board the vessels will be doctors, activists, convoy organisers, lawyers and social media influencers. Inside the holds: cardboard boxes full of medicine and infant milk - and some touching messages and gifts from Tunisian children to their counterparts in Gaza.
All seven flotillas that have set sail to Gaza since 2010 have been either intercepted or attacked by the Israeli army before even reaching Gaza's territorial waters. On May 2, the ship Conscience was struck twice by Israeli armed drones when it was just 25 kilometres (16 miles) away from the shores of Malta.
Thorough preparations for the flotilla are ongoing in many Tunisian cities, including Tunis, Bizerte, Beja, Sousse, Sfax and Gabes. For many of the volunteers at work in Tunisia's donation centres, their ties to Gaza run deep, and many have felt helpless having watched almost two years of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, killing more than 62,000 Palestinians.
Many here remember local political activist Hatem Laayouni's joining efforts to break the Israeli siege of Gaza on board the Handala mission in July, as well as the Tunisian-led Sumud convoy that attempted to get through the previous month. Both attempts seem to have made Gaza feel within reach for many now volunteering to supply and sail within the latest flotilla. "Tunisians no longer think Palestine is far away. Palestine is close. It's definitely not far away," says a volunteer who goes by the name Sahraoui.
Volunteers from across Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia and the United States are taking part, and know that they have no time to waste, particularly as Gaza is now officially in a famine.
Source: Qatar Tribune