BARCELONA: A Gaza-bound flotilla carrying humanitarian aid and pro-Palestinian activists including environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg departed Barcelona again on Monday, several hours after winds forced it to return to the Spanish port, according to AFP journalists at the scene.
Around 20 vessels left the Spanish city on Sunday aiming to “open a humanitarian corridor and end the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people” amid the Israel-Hamas war, said the Global Sumud Flotilla — sumud being the Arabic term for “resilience.”
But “due to unsafe weather conditions,” the flotilla returned to port “to allow the storm to pass,” the organization said in an earlier statement, without specifying when exactly the boats returned to Barcelona.
“We made this decision to prioritize the safety and well-being of all participants and to safeguard the success of our mission,” it added, citing gusts that exceeded 55 kilometers (34 miles) per hour.
Organizers said they were especially concerned about the risk the weather posed to the smaller boats.
Spain’s national weather agency AEMET had issued warnings of rainfall and strong storms for the northeastern region of Catalonia which includes Barcelona.
The activists from dozens of countries included Thunberg, Irish actor Liam Cunningham and Spain’s Eduard Fernandez, as well as European lawmakers and public figures, including former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau.
The flotilla is expected to arrive in Gaza in mid-September and comes after Israel blocked two activist attempts to deliver aid to the devastated Palestinian territory by ship in June and July.
The United Nations has declared a famine in Gaza, warning that 500,000 people face “catastrophic” conditions.
The war was triggered by an unprecedented cross-border attack on Israel by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the death of 1,219 people, mainly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official data.
Palestinian militants also seized 251 hostages, with 47 still held in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli army says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 63,459 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry which the UN considers reliable.
Gaza aid flotilla departs Barcelona again: AFP journalists
https://arab.news/pk9sc
Gaza aid flotilla departs Barcelona again: AFP journalists
- Around 20 vessels left the Spanish city on Sunday aiming to “open a humanitarian corridor and end the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people”
- But “due to unsafe weather conditions,” the flotilla returned to port “to allow the storm to pass,” the organization said
Syria gunman who killed Americans was to be fired from security forces for ‘extremism’: ministry
DAMASCUS: Syria’s interior ministry said on Sunday that the gunman who killed three Americans in the central Palmyra region the previous day was a member of the security forces who was to have been fired for extremism.
Two US troops and a civilian interpreter died in the attack on Saturday, which the US Central Command said had been carried out by an alleged Daesh group (IS) militant who was then killed.
The Syrian authorities “had decided to fire him” from the security forces before the attack for holding “extremist Islamist ideas” and had planned to do so on Sunday, interior ministry spokesman Noureddine Al-Baba told state television.
A Syrian security official told AFP on Sunday that “11 members of the general security forces were arrested and brought in for questioning after the attack.”
The official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the gunman had belonged to the security forces “for more than 10 months and was posted to several cities before being transferred to Palmyra.”
Palmyra, home to UNESCO-listed ancient ruins, was once controlled by IS during the height of its territorial expansion in Syria.
The incident is the first of its kind reported since Islamist-led forces overthrew longtime Syrian ruler Bashar Assad in December last year, and rekindled the country’s ties with the United States.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said the soldiers “were conducting a key leader engagement” in support of counter-terrorism operations when the attack occurred, while US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack said the ambush targeted “a joint US-Syrian government patrol.”
US President Donald Trump called the incident “an Daesh attack against the US, and Syria, in a very dangerous part of Syria, that is not fully controlled by them,” using another term for the group.
He said the three other US troops injured in the attack were “doing well.”
