The attack on the “Madleen” and our responsibility to resist, escalate and break the siege

Zionist occupation forces attacked, boarded and abducted the “Madleen,” the Freedom Flotilla ship in international waters, in the early morning hours of 9 June 2025. The Madleen — the international ship aiming to break the blockade of Gaza amid the ongoing imperialist-Zionist genocide — has 12 crew members on board from Sweden, France, Brazil, Germany, Spain, Turkey and the Netherlands. The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has issued an urgent call for people around the world to contact the foreign ministries of these countries to demand the release of the abducted activists — and to break the siege on Gaza and end the genocide.

The FFC’s demands are:
• An end to the illegal and deadly siege of Gaza.
• The immediate release of all abducted volunteers;
• The immediate delivery of humanitarian aid directly to Palestinians that is independent of the control of the occupying power
• Full accountability for the military assaults on Madleen and Conscience.

Abducted activists Baptiste Andre, Omar Faiad, Pascal Maurieras, Reva Viard, Rima Hassan, and Yanis M’hamdi are citizens of France.
E: alertes.cdc@diplomatie.gouv.fr & courrier.scec@diplomatie.gouv.fr
X : @FranceDiplo_EN & @francediplo & @jnbarrot
FB : @France Diplomatie & @Jean-Noël Barrot
IG : @francediplo & @jeannoelbarrot

Abducted activist Thiago Avila is a citizen of Brazil.
Email : portal@itamaraty.gov.br
X : @ItamaratyGovBr
IG : @itamaratygovbr
FB : @Ministerio das relacoes exteriroes

Abducted activist Greta Thunberg is a citizen of Sweden.
Web: https://www.government.se/contacts/
X : @SweMFA
FB : @SweMFA
IG : swedishmfa

Abducted activist Suyab Ordu is a citizen of Turkiye.
X : @MFATurkiye
IG : @tcdisisleri
FB : @T.C. Dışişleri Bakanlığı

Abducted activist Sergio Toribio is a citizen of Spain.
E: consular@maec.es
X @SpainMFA & @MAECgob @jmalbares
IG : @exteriores.maec
Bsky: @jmalbares.bsky.social @exterioresgob.bsky.social

Abducted activist Yasemin Acar is a citizen of Germany
W: www.auswaertiges-amt.de/en/visa-service/buergerservice/contact-form
IG : @auswaertigesamt
FB : @Auswärtiges Amt
X : GermanyDiplo

Abducted activist Marco Van Rennes is a citizen of the Netherlands
X : @DutchMFA
IG : minbz
FB : Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken
Email : info@minbuza.nl VCl@minbuza.nl

The Zionist commandeering of the ship began with the “Madleen” being surrounded by occupation warships before quadcopter drones — the same types of drones that have been used to spray bullets and explosives on Palestinians in Gaza — began spraying an as-yet-unidentified white chemical substance on the deck of the ship. Shortly thereafter, occupation forces boarded and seized the boat, announcing that they were commandeering it to the port of occupied ‘Isdud (“Ashdod”).

The attack on the “Madleen” comes in blatant violation of international law; however, this comes as no surprise from an entity that is openly engaging in genocide, the greatest crime in international law. It is an assault on a popular initiative of free people and social movements seeking to break the siege and end the genocide, confronting the Zionist-imperialist war machine; the pirating of the Madleen comes in the service of continuing the genocide, including the unlawful blockade of Gaza.

It further comes almost 18 years to the day after the violent escalation of the siege on Gaza by the the “Israeli” regime, the imperialist powers and complicit reactionary Arab regimes, particularly Egypt, in June 2007, when the Rafah crossing was closed after European Union “monitors” imposed upon Egyptian-Palestinian trade and travel refused to accept the democratic will of the Palestinian people, the victory of the Change and Reform party associated with Hamas in the 2006 Palestinian elections, and the Palestinian defense of its electoral achievements and resistance against an attempted coup in that month.

Gaza has been besieged in various forms since 1967 — amid the ongoing colonization, occupation and genocide imposed upon the Palestinian people since 1948 by the Zionist regime, and prior, by the British colonial mandate. Over 70% of Palestinians in Gaza are themselves refugees denied their right to return home to their original homes and lands in 1948 occupied Palestine.

Amid the ongoing genocide and starvation policy imposed on Palestinians in Gaza, the occupation regime has continued its attacks on Palestinian fishers from Gaza, with warships repeatedly firing on any fishers that attempt to bring food to their people. Sinking, confiscating and damaging fishing boats from Gaza has been a policy of the occupation for even longer than the 18 years of siege imposed upon the Strip; this is one reason the “Madleen” was named in 2014 after Madleen Kullab, a young Palestinian woman fisher.

Just days ago, on 4 June, the occupation forces attacked another vessel — a Lebanese fishing boat near Ras Naqoura, in Lebanese waters, sailed by Lebanese fisherman Ali Fneich. Several months ago, fellow fisherman Mohammed Juheir was abducted in a similar incident; both Ali and Mohammed remain captives of the occupation. Another fisherman who survived the attack said: ”

“We were fishing as usual since early morning,” the fisherman recalls. “Then around 10:30 AM, four Israeli boats appeared, sailing deep inside our national waters. They headed quickly towards us while opening fire. They took Ali, threw me in the water, took my clothes, and everything else we had on the boat. They did the same to the other fishermen near us.”

This is just one of the ongoing attacks on Lebanon that continue daily in blatant violation of the November ceasefire agreement, with the full complicity of the United States and other imperialist powers, including ongoing assassinations, bombings of residential areas, and ongoing attempts to invade the south of Lebanon. (Sign on to the All for Lebanon campaign to join many around the world to take a stand in support of Lebanon against these assaults.)

The sailing of the Madleen, the Zionist assault on it and the abduction of its crew come amid a series of popular activities taking place around the world, all seeking to break the siege, end the genocide, and confront the policy of starvation imposed upon the Palestinian people. Major popular marches, including the Global March to Gaza, with over 2500 participants from various countries around the world, will set off from Cairo on 12 June for a march to the Rafah Crossing, where thousands of trucks are waiting to enter Gaza with necessary aid, ranging from food, flour and medicine to construction equipment, caravans and tents, and are prevented from doing so by the ongoing siege imposed by the genocidal Zionist regime.

Over 10,000 people from throughout North Africa have registered to join the Sumud Caravan, launching today from Algeria, with participants from Morocco and Mauritania, traveling through Tunis, where thousands have joined at the initiative of a wide alliance of Tunisian organizations, including the Coalition of Joint Action for Palestine in Tunisia, and Libya, to Egypt to the Rafah crossing, in buses, vans and trucks. These three popular initiatives are bringing people aiming to confront the siege with their own bodies and consciences in the face of the Zionist-imperialist war machine.

The Madleen is only the latest initiative of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition seeking to break the siege; in 2008, the first several sailings of the Free Gaza campaign successfully challenged the siege and landed on Gaza’s shores, welcomed by the Palestinian people. In the ensuing years, the attacks by the Zionist regime to prevent the boats from reaching Gaza have only escalated, including diplomatic pressure on countries to prevent Flotilla ships from sailing from their ports and to remove flags from ships that are part of the Flotilla; sabotaging Flotilla ships in port; and, most infamously, the 2010 attack on the “Mavi Marmara,” the lead ship of the Flotilla, in which occupation forces killed 10 martyrs for the Palestinian cause. Just two months ago, in April 2025, the Freedom Flotilla’s ship “Conscience” was preparing to sail to Gaza from Malta; it was attacked off the coast of Malta by presumably “Israeli” drones and set on fire before finally being towed back to shore.

The attack on the Madleen also comes as the Zionist regime and its imperialist sponsors, particularly the United States, have been seeking to impose a system of “aid” blackmail upon the Palestinian people through the so-called “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation,” which aims to replace the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) and other legitimate aid distribution organizations with a surveillance operation controlled by the United States and “Israel” that targets Palestinians for abduction and assassination. Over 126 Palestinians in Gaza have been massacred at these so-called “aid distribution sites” — in reality, death traps — and hundreds more have been wounded, in just the past few days of their operation.

These sites distribute only small amounts of aid, requiring Palestinians to repeatedly return to the areas, and are intended to force Palestinians into even smaller concentration camp areas in Rafah and southern Gaza, as a prelude to their displacement. This is accompanied by the systematic support of armed collaborator gangs to attack and loot real aid trucks, selling flour and other basic supplies to Palestinians at highly inflated prices, again in an attempt to both impose the starvation policy and force hungry people to go to these US-Zionist death trap “aid sites”. In a statement issued on Sunday, 8 June, Palestinian resistance factions said:

The American aid distribution centers have turned into death traps and snares, targeting our hungry people who are driven by hunger and thirst to seek refuge there. These deceptive centers have become daily massacres and slaughters before the eyes and ears of the entire world.

Palestinian government officials, Interior Ministry workers, civil defense workers, aid distribution directors, police and security forces, and aid workers, have been systematically targeted for assassination; Palestinian security forces that protect aid trucks and clash with the “thieves” supported by the occupation have been repeatedly massacred in airstrikes and drone attacks. Just yesterday, Palestinian security forces from the Arrow Units, who had held a currency exchanger extorting over 50% profit from Palestinians under siege and genocide accountable, were targeted for assassination in yet another drone strike.

All of the governments that are complicit in the ongoing Zionist genocide in occupied Palestine for the past 77 years are also complicit in the attack on the Madleen and in the ongoing deliberately imposed famine and starvation on Palestinians in Gaza. It is the resistance forces in Palestine itself, from the heart of the land and people being subjected to genocide, and of the region, from Hezbollah and the popular cradle of the Lebanese resistance, to the Yemeni government, armed forces, AnsarAllah movement and people who daily confront the siege and genocide by besieging the occupier in the Red Sea and through drones and missiles, stretching to Iraq, Iran and beyond, that confront the genocidal regime amid the active complicity and involvement of the imperialist powers and the Arab reactionary regimes.

The popular movements around the world, visible through the direct actions at arms factories and other sites of the imperialist war machine, mass demonstrations, university encampments, workplace actions — from dockworkers refusing to load weapons for the occupation to tech workers refusing to produce AI for genocide — siege-breaking initiatives like the Flotillas, global marches, and caravans, and a wide variety of individual and collective confrontations of fascist forces — including the current uprisings against ICE and the deportation regime in the United States — are part of an international camp of resistance confronting imperialism, Zionism and reaction.

The attack on the Madleen, which comes hand in hand with the vicious repression inside many imperialist states, such as the United States, Germany, Britain and France, against the movement for Palestinian liberation, must serve as a call to escalate the struggle to meaningfully obstruct the mechanisms of genocide and to raise our level of organization, tactics, action and resistance to live up to the example set daily by Yemen, and to rise to fulfill our responsibilities at this critical moment.

As our comrades in Samidoun Brasil, the Masar Badil and Alkarama wrote: “Every shackle on the wrist of an activist aboard this flotilla is further evidence of the brutality of the entity and the failure of its deceptive propaganda. And every inch the flotilla advances on its way to Gaza is an open call for political and popular disobedience—against imperialism, against silence, and against defeat. Immediate and effective international mobilization to lift the siege on Gaza is not a choice—it is a revolutionary duty. And history will not forgive the complacent.”