Ritratt ta’ Laura Galea

Human rights organisations have called on Maltese authorities to immediately investigate and halt a Malta-flagged vessel carrying approximately 170,000 tonnes of coal believed destined for Israel, warning that allowing the shipment to proceed would make Malta complicit in what UN experts have characterised as genocide.

The MV Seafighter (IMO: 9686326), operated by Greek company Thenamaris, has become the focus of urgent appeals to Director General Neville Aquilina, deputy prime minister Ian Borg, and transport minister Chris Bonett. Representatives from Ġustizzja għall-Palestina, Moviment Graffitti, the Lebanese Advocates, Watermelon Warriors, and SpeakUp! Malta are demanding immediate intervention.

“We called for an urgent risk analysis and for the vessel to be stopped given the fact that if its cargo is delivered to Israel, the coal will inevitably aid and assist Israel’s unlawful occupations, the commission of the crime of apartheid, and plausibly genocide,” Yana Mintoff, a Ġustizzja għall-Palestina spokesperson, said. “We have not yet received any satisfactory response from them.”

The organisations organised a peaceful demonstration this evening in Parliament Square, Valletta, to demand immediate government action. The demonstration called for Malta to uphold its international legal obligations and prevent the vessel from contributing to what UN experts, genocide scholars, and a UN board of inquiry have all said is an ongoing genocide against Palestinians.

According to the report “Powering Injustice” from the Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO), coal plays a crucial role in generating electricity for Israel’s military infrastructure, including energy-intensive artificial intelligence servers used to create what has been described as a “factory of mass assassination” in Gaza. Based on Israel’s electricity grid design, any electricity generated inevitably powers both Israel proper and its illegal occupation and settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.

Colombia has already announced an end to coal exports to Israel for these reasons.

The October 2025 report by the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, titled “Gaza Genocide: a collective crime,” concluded that “the extent of Israel’s unlawful actions renders any distinction between Israel and the oPt legally and practically impossible.” The report states that if Israel itself cannot or will not distinguish between its territory and the occupied Palestinian territory, third states must presume indistinguishability, requiring “a comprehensive boycott of Israel.”

Despite a ceasefire agreement designed by US president Donald Trump and Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu that came into effect on 10 October, violence continues unabated. At least 236 Palestinians have been killed and 600 wounded in Gaza since the truce began, with Israel violating the ceasefire repeatedly. The death toll in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has also increased sharply, with killings by Israeli Security Forces and settlers continuing.

Malta voted in favour of UN General Assembly Resolution A/ES-10/L.31 in 2024, which mandates third states to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” and to ensure that entities under their jurisdiction “do not act in any way that would entail recognition or provide aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence.”

“In allowing the Seafighter with its cargo of coal to Israel to be registered under its shipping register, Malta would contravene these obligations and effectively take part in trade relations that assist the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel,” Mintoff added. “It also allows entities and companies under Malta jurisdiction to provide assistance to maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid, and possibly genocide.”

A legal opinion from ASCOMARE on flag state responsibility emphasises the “enhanced responsibility for States to ensure that they do not, directly or indirectly, contribute to serious violations of these peremptory norms,” particularly concerning prolonged occupation, illegal annexation, or systematic persecution involving grave and widespread human rights violations.