The Palestinian National Council condemns Israel's seizure of the Al-Samoud flotilla

The President of the Palestinian National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, strongly condemned the seizure by Israeli forces of more than forty boats from the Global Resilience Fleet heading to the Gaza Strip. Fattouh stressed that this operation constitutes a "composite crime" and a flagrant violation of the rules of international humanitarian law and international law of the sea. According to Israeli security sources, the forces arrested more than three hundred activists participating in the flotilla, including the doctor and the activist Irish humanitarian Margaret Connolly. The flotilla had set out from the Turkish city of Marmaris with the participation of fifty-four boats in a new attempt to break the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza since 2007. Fattouh pointed out that this behavior "once again reveals the aggressive nature of the occupation state, which is now dealing with the Mediterranean Sea as an open military zone for the practice of organized terrorism." He confirmed that the fleet participants were carrying A humanitarian and moral message aimed at breaking the illegal siege. The President of the Palestinian National Council called on the international community to hold Israel accountable for its repeated violations against civilians and international solidarity, stressing the need for the immediate release of all detainees and ensuring legal protection for humanitarian relief ships. This operation comes in light of the catastrophic humanitarian situation experienced by about 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, including about One and a half million displaced. These conditions were exacerbated by the ongoing Israeli aggression, which left more than seventy-two thousand martyrs and more than one hundred and seventy-two thousand wounded.