A boat carrying pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid supplies is approaching the Gaza Strip, organizers said Saturday, as they anticipated an Israeli military interception before it can break the IDF’s maritime blockade of the besieged enclave.

The Handala set sail from Sicily earlier this month, weeks after Israel intercepted a different vessel that made a high-profile attempt to break the blockade.

Handala is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which also dispatched the previous boat, the Madleen, on a mission to challenge Israel’s blockade on the Strip.

Organizers said Handala was now around 100 nautical miles from Gaza’s shores, reportedly passing the point where the Israeli Navy intercepted the Madleen.

According to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s website, the Handala is carrying 19 activists, including two Jewish-Americans and two French politicians, as well as two Al Jazeera journalists.

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The organization did not disclose the contents or quantity of the humanitarian aid aboard the ship.

According to several activists aboard the Handala, the group decided that it would begin a hunger strike immediately upon interception by the IDF.

“If the Israeli military attacks our vessel and prevents us from getting to Gaza, we will go on hunger strike immediately,” Huwaida Arraf said in a social media post on Friday.

“We are not interested in receiving any food or water [from Israel…] and certainly not in the ways that they use it for propaganda, while at the same time they are starving to death Palestinian children,” she added.

The IDF, in response to a query about the ship, said it was “enforcing the maritime security blockade on the Gaza Strip and is prepared for a range of scenarios, which it will implement in accordance with the directives of the political echelon.”

The previous ship launched by the Flotilla group, the Madleen, was intercepted by Israeli authorities on June 9, about 100 nautical miles (185 kilometers) west of Gaza’s coast, after it defied repeated warnings by Israel to turn around.

Israel towed the boat to Ashdod Port and detained the 12 activists on board — including climate activist Greta Thunberg — before deporting them over the following days. Jerusalem, which described the venture as a publicity stunt, said the small amount of aid on that boat was then transferred to Gaza using approved overland channels.

Activists on the Madleen Gaza-bound aid boat are being given sandwiches after the vessel was intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters. (Screenshot/Israeli Foreign Ministry via AFP)

Several other attempts have been made over the years to approach Gaza by sea, not all of which fared as well as the Madleen.

In May, a vessel dispatched by the Freedom Flotilla was attacked by two drones while sailing in international waters off Malta. The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship. Israel did not comment on the incident.

Past attempts to break the blockade have also failed, most notably the Mavi Marmara incident of 2010, which saw Israeli commandos board a Turkish-led flotilla bound for Gaza. The violence that ensued when those aboard the ship attacked the soldiers resulted in the deaths of 10 activists and left a soldier badly wounded, sparking international condemnation and a severe diplomatic rift between Israel and Turkey.

Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007 in a violent coup. Israel says it is necessary to limit Hamas’s ability to smuggle in arms with which to attack the Jewish state. Critics of the blockade say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians.

Piles of humanitarian aid packages wait to be picked up on the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing in the Gaza Strip, Thursday, July 24, 2025, during a media tour organized by the Israeli army. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg, file)

Nearly 60,000 Palestinians have been killed since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.

In recent weeks, as the humanitarian situation has deteriorated severely, the ministry says at least 56 people have died of causes related to malnutrition in Gaza, including 35 adults and 22 children. That’s up from 10 children who died from such causes during all five previous months of 2025, according to the ministry.

For their part, Israeli authorities continued to maintain on Friday that while the humanitarian situation in Gaza is difficult, there is no widespread famine.

Agencies contributed to this report.


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