The organizers of a Gaza aid flotilla said Tuesday that two of their boats had been attacked by drones in Tunisian waters.
The Global Sumud Flotilla said Alma, a British-flagged boat in the civilian fleet, was hit by a drone while it was docked in the second such strike in two days. On Monday, the group said that one of its main boats, which is Portuguese-flagged, was also hit.
Both incidents caused fire damage but no injuries, according to GSF.
The attacks are an “orchestrated attempt to distract and derail” the group’s mission to deliver aid for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, GSF said in a statement, stressing that members were “undeterred.”
“Our peaceful voyage to break Israel’s illegal siege on Gaza and stand in unwavering solidarity with its people presses forward with determination and resolve,” it added.
While a “full investigation” is ongoing, Alma crew members have recovered a charred electronic device from the deck that further indicates the boat was “deliberately targeted,” GSF said in a separate statement on Instagram.
A spokesperson for the Tunisian Coast Guard did not respond to a call on the latest reported attack from Reuters on Wednesday.
Officials earlier denied that the first boat had been attacked by a drone, saying the explosion came from inside the vessel. A National Guard spokesperson told local media that claims of the first drone attack on the flotilla “have no basis in truth,” Reuters reported Tuesday.
With around 20 boats and participants from 44 countries, including activist Greta Thunberg, the group is the largest civilian maritime attempt to break the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory.
Miguel Duarte, a crew member, said the suspected drone stopped close to the flotilla, moved slowly to the front and then dropped “what was obviously a bomb” on the forward part of the deck.
“Let me be clear 100%. It was a drone dropping a bomb on the forward deck of our ship,” Duarte said when he was asked whether the team was “absolutely certain that this was a drone attack,” a video he posted on Instagram shows.
“I’m OK, but we could have been killed, right?” Duarte said, citing the deaths during the Israel-Hamas war of humanitarian and medical workers.
“We know the dangers that we’re facing,” he said.
After the explosion, crew members repeatedly yelled for help and sounded the fire alarm, according to a CCTV video shared by Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza.
“If it’s confirmed that this is a drone attack, it will be an assault and aggression against Tunisia and against Tunisian sovereignty,” Albanese said. “And again, we cannot keep on tolerating this and normalizing the illegal.”
Demonstrators gathered at the port of Tunis around 2 a.m. local time (10 p.m. Monday ET), some waving Palestinian and Turkish flags and chanting “Free Palestine,” according to a video reposted by GSF.
In 2010, Israeli forces stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza and killed at least nine pro-Palestinian activists, sparking global outrage.
In June, Israel intercepted a vessel of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and detained all 12 people on board, including Thunberg.
Starvation deaths in Gaza surged after Israel’s blockade in March, and aid was resumed in May under a system backed by the United States and Israel. Since then, nearly 1,400 people have died and 4,000 more have been injured seeking food, with at least 859 killed near aid sites, the United Nations says.
