A second flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza was due to set sail on Sunday from \u2060the Spanish port of Barcelona to try to break the Israeli blockade.<\/p>\n
About 30 boats planned to leave the Mediterranean port city laden with medical aid and other supplies on the Global Sumud Flotilla, and more vessels are expected to join \u2060along the route towards Palestine.<\/p>\n
The Israeli military \u200bhalted \u2060the roughly 40 boats assembled by the same organisation last October as they attempted to reach blockaded Gaza, arresting Swedish activist \u2060Greta Thunberg and more than 450 other participants.<\/p>\n
Israel, which \u200bcontrols \u2060all access to the Gaza \u200cStrip, denies withholding supplies for its more than 2 million residents. Yet Palestinians and international aid bodies say supplies reaching the territory are still insufficient, \u200cdespite a ceasefire reached in October which included \u200cguarantees of increased aid.<\/p>\n
Liam Cunningham, an actor who starred in the Game of Thrones television series who is supporting the flotilla but not taking part, told Reuters: \u201cEvery kilogram of \u2060aid that is on these ships is a failure because all these people on these ships giving up their time to help their fellow human beings are doing what their governments are legally obliged to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The World Health Organization has said that even during armed conflicts, states are obligated under international humanitarian law to ensure that people are able to reach \u200cmedical care in safety.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a mission that aims to open \u200ba humanitarian corridor so the aid delivery organisations can arrive,\u201d \u200cSaif Abukeshak, a Palestinian activist and \u2060member of the flotilla\u2019s organising committee, told Reuters.<\/p>\n
Swiss and Spanish activists \u2060on last year\u2019s flotilla said they were subjected to inhumane conditions during their detention by Israeli \u200cforces \u2014 an allegation \u200bthat was rejected by an Israeli foreign \u200cministry spokesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A second flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza was due to set sail on Sunday from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":579688,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-579687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579687\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/579688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}