Swiss citizens will participate in the world flotilla intended to break the Gaza maritime blockade. The Waves of Freedom association (WOFA) projects to leave with five boats loaded with infantile powder and water filters. She has already bought three.
“What is happening is inhuman. We want to break the blockade, the aid is on the spot,” said the media in Geneva Hicham El Ghaoui, president of Wofa, an association founded in 2025 on Tuesday in Verbier (VS). According to the doctor, who participated in several missions in Gaza and walking in Egypt, trucks full of food are stationed near the Palestinian enclave, where people are starving.
With more than 160 nationalities represented, the Global Sumud Flotilla is the largest action in civil society ever organized, said Shady Ammane, delegate for Switzerland. Dozens of boats will be there in a peaceful and non -violent approach. They will mainly leave from Barcelona on August 31 and from Tunis on September 4.
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Boats carrying humanitarian and medical aid will start from other Mediterranean ports, not specified to avoid sabotage. WOFA, who baptized his first two sailboats Heidi and Guillaume Tell, is looking for funds to acquire two additional boats as well as skippers, doctors and journalists to support participants.
Greta Thunberg
In Switzerland, more than 600 people have registered and 267 of them filed their identity card, said Shady Ammane. Globally, two thirds of the 18,000 people registered want to climb on boats, said Samuel Crettenand, an international delegate, for whom “Gaza is the human rights cemetery”.
>> Read also: A new humanitarian aid flotilla is preparing to go to Gaza
The number of volunteers has increased since the announcement of the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg since the announcement on Sunday. They will all be subject to the same recruitment and training process, in order to ensure in particular that they will not panic if the boats are intercepted by specialized Israeli commandos. Psychologists and lawyers will support the participants remotely.
At the political level, parliamentarians have been contacted. “Switzerland has shone by its silence for almost two years. Faced with a genocide, being neutral is being loose or accomplice,” said Hicham El Ghaoui. “Our action is dictated by international law. We ask all governments to protect us,” he said, recalling that action will take place in international waters.
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