Portside

In the early hours of Friday, May 2, shortly after midnight local time and just a few nautical miles outside the territorial waters of Malta, the passenger ship Conscience was attacked at least twice by drones, leaving a hole near its bow and the vessel seriously damaged. The ship, which was carrying human rights activists and humanitarian aid bound for Gaza, was anchored in international waters as it awaited permission to dock at Malta to pick up pro-Palestinian activists.

“We are dealing with a brutal attack on an innocent ship,” retired U.S. Army Colonel Ann Wright, a spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), told Democracy Now! on Friday. “While we can not yet identify the source of the drones, there is no doubt in my mind that there is a history of violence that has been directed toward the flotillas from the state of Israel.” The Times of Malta reported that an Israeli warplane was circling the airspace over Malta near the time of the attack.

Why would Israel attack a passenger ship anchored in international waters near Malta? Reports of the details of the story vary—for example, the number of activists on board and the distance of the ship from Malta’s waters are contested—but the basic story is clear. The Conscience was anchored outside Malta’s waters on May 2 with a mix of crew and activists on the ship. About sixty more people from more than twenty countries were scheduled to board from the island nation, including Wright and the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, according to the FFC. 

“Anyone could have been on that boat—it could have been Greta, it could have been me. The ship was anchored, clearly civilian, and preparing for a humanitarian voyage,” Wright told The Quint.

The Conscience is carrying food, water, and medicine bound for Gaza, says FFC spokesperson and lawyer Huwaida Arraf, who is not traveling with the flotilla. Elliott Adams, who traveled with the FFC’s 2024 attempt to break the siege of Gaza, tells The Progressive, “[It is] a small effort to bring a little bit of food and humanitarian .” The previous trip was never allowed to set sail due to Israeli political pressure.

After the drone strikes, which hit the generator, the vessel was on fire and sinking. Those onboard sent out an SOS message, and nearby boats responded to the call. However, they were unable or unwilling to patch the ship such that it could continue its journey, and the passengers refused to disembark from the Conscience onto a Maltese ship, according to CNN.

When FFC activists attempted to reach the Conscience in another vessel to board on the following day, they were refused permission by Maltese officials, according to Arraf. Malta also refused the Conscience permission to dock, but eventually did agree to repair the ship in international waters. The government of Malta did not respond to requests for comment.

The Conscience voyage is the latest in a series of civilian attempts to deliver humanitarian assistance to Gaza since the territory was placed under siege by Israel in 2007. Most infamously, an international flotilla of eight ships including the Mavi Marmara was raided by the Israeli military in May 2010, resulting in the killing of nine activists and a number of people wounded on both sides. The Israeli forces used smoke bombs, stun grenades, and live ammunition; the activists fought back with their fists, metal rods, and kitchen knives. 

Now, in addition to the overall siege on Gaza, the FFC is opposing Israel’s ongoing genocide and the most recent two-month period during which no food, water, medicine, or other essentials have been allowed into the region. While an exact death toll is unknown for this period in particular, the combination of deprivation and air strikes has killed dozens of civilians on many days.

“It’s hard to comprehend how really evil this is. no question anywhere that starving a civilian population is illegal,” says Arraf.

The United States has sent more than $300 billion to Israel since its founding in 1948, nearly three quarters of which has been military aid. Israel in return imports 78 percent of its weapons from the United States.

“I have been horrified in the blatant complicity of the United States in providing bombs, weapons and targeting information to the Israeli military that has killed over 60,000 Palestinians and left hundreds of thousands wounded and homeless,” Wright explained in a statement to The Progressive.

In the face of that complicity or governmental inaction from other states like those of the European Union, civilian efforts to ease or end the plight of Palestinians have proliferated. These range from the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement to student protests to the numerous freedom flotillas.

“Every person has to do whatever they can to try to stop this,” says Adams. “We all have different capacities, but doing nothing is not okay.”

[Saurav Sarkar is a writer based in the New York area. He can be reached at sauravsarkar.com or on Bluesky @sauravthewriter.]