Sulfuric Acid Attack & Propeller Tampering Ahead Of Gaza Flotilla Launch.

The Gaza-bound humanitarian vessel Handala, part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), has set sail from Gallipoli, Italy, despite alarming sabotage attempts in the hours leading up to its departure.

Departure from Gallipoli:

• After a brief anchorage in Syracuse on July 13, Handala arrived in Gallipoli between July 15–20, completing final technical checks, and formally departed on July 20.
• The voyage carries essential aid, medicine, baby formula, stuffed animals and a declaration of solidarity with Gaza’s suffering children, who constitute over half of the enclave’s population.

Suspected Sabotage Incidents:

Just hours before departure, two distinct and dangerous acts occurred:

1. Propeller Tampering
   Crew found a rope tightly wound around Handala’s propeller, likely deliberate sabotage aimed at immobilising the vessel.
2. Sulfuric Acid Attack
   A lorry, purportedly delivering fresh water, instead contained sulfuric acid. Two crew members suffered chemical burns, one to the hand upon opening the container, another to the leg from splashing liquid.

Video evidence of the delivery exists, and organisers have demanded an immediate investigation and accountability.

Despite these incidents, Handala sailed as scheduled. “The attempt to harm our team and silence this mission will not succeed,” organisers stated.

Context Within The Flotilla Campaign:

• Earlier this summer, another FFC vessel, Madleen, was seized by Israeli naval forces in international waters. The crew, journalists, medics, activists, and an MEP were detained, interrogated, and deported.
• Since 2010, the FFC has launched repeated campaigns to challenge what it terms the “illegal and inhumane blockade” of Gaza.
• Handala sails with 25+ civilians, including medics, lawyers, journalists, activists, EU politicians, and community organisers.

Huwaida Arraf, a U.S.-based Palestinian human rights lawyer and FFC steering committee member, emphasised:

“This is a collective act of conscience… we are everyday people from around the world… confronting Israel’s ongoing war crimes…”.

Dedicated To Gaza’s Children:

Named after the emblematic Palestinian cartoon character Handala, the vessel symbolises Palestinian resistance and the enduring right of return. The coalition dedicates this mission to Gaza’s children, more than half of the enclave’s population, many of whom have been orphaned or wounded in the ongoing assault since October 2023.

FFC estimates that since the current escalation, over 50,000 children in Gaza have been killed or wounded, tens of thousands have been orphaned, and nearly a million have been displaced.

Call For Action:

• FFC is urging international governments, UN agencies, NGOs, and civil society to condemn the sabotage, investigate the origins of both attacks, and ensure safe passage for the Handala.
• With this mission, they aim to reopen a humanitarian corridor by sea, bypassing land restrictions imposed by Israeli authorities.
• The coalition characterises the sabotage as not just criminal, but also political: a deliberate attempt to silence dissent and block humanitarian efforts.

Strategic & Historical Background:

• The July 2025 flotilla is part of a series of non-state civilian missions employing maritime routes to symbolically, and practically, challenge Gaza’s blockade.
• Handala’s politicised visits across Europe in 2023–24 served to build solidarity, shape public discourse, and maintain international attention on Gaza.
• Previous FFC vessels, including the Conscience, were even targeted in drone strikes (e.g., May 2025) near Malta, highlighting the risks these civilians face.

What Comes Next:

• The flotilla is now in international waters, heading toward Gaza. FFC plans live updates via its tracker and social media.
• Final outcomes could include interception by Israeli forces, confrontation, or forced redirection to ports such as Ashdod.
• Even if unable to dock in Gaza, organisers say the mission already achieves an essential purpose: bearing witness and challenging global silence.

Final Thoughts:

Handala’s departure under attack is a potent metaphor: solidarity under siege. The sabotage, far from derailing the voyage, has galvanised the coalition and their message. Whether Handala reaches Gaza or not, the voyage raises urgent questions on the world stage—about the blockade, humanitarian law, and moral responsibility.

Conclusion: Sabotage At Sea, An Assault On Conscience:

The sabotage of the Handala flotilla, via chemical assault and propeller tampering, goes far beyond an attack on a single vessel. It is an attack on the principle that ordinary civilians have the right to peacefully challenge state violence and deliver aid to besieged populations. The deliberate use of sulfuric acid, classified as a highly corrosive and dangerous substance, points to calculated intent to injure, incapacitate, and intimidate. That such an act was committed on European soil, with perpetrators captured on video, raises urgent questions about complicity, impunity, and the erosion of international norms.

This is not just a maritime incident. It is a warning signal that even humanitarian solidarity is now being criminalised, surveilled, and violently suppressed. The sabotage of Handala fits a broader pattern, of states and actors aligned with Israel using every means to block aid to Gaza, muzzle dissent, and delegitimise international civil society efforts. When governments fail to act, when they remain silent or complicit in the face of war crimes, it falls to ordinary people to intervene. But now even that moral act is under attack.

At the heart of this issue lies the fact that Israel and its intelligence agencies, and affiliated groups acting as extensions of state policy, operate with near-total immunity across borders. Their actions, whether covert or overt, increasingly target not only perceived enemies but also civilians engaged in legal, peaceful, humanitarian efforts. Hostile intent is masked behind the rhetoric of “security,” while actual violence is directed at aid workers, medics, and volunteers. The sabotage of the Handala bears all the hallmarks of a coordinated attempt to intimidate, disrupt, and deter any challenge to Israel’s siege of Gaza, regardless of international law or human rights conventions.

This is not just an act of sabotage, it is an attack on human rights, on the integrity of international law, and on the very dignity of those who seek to uphold it. It is an assault on the principle that all people, no matter where they live, deserve freedom from starvation, siege, and indiscriminate bombing. It is an affront to the idea that civilians have a right, and a responsibility, to stand in solidarity with the oppressed.

The flotilla’s mission, nonviolent, civilian-led, and rooted in moral conscience, should be protected, not persecuted. Every inch of rope wound around that propeller, every drop of acid poured into a water container, is a measure of how far the defenders of Gaza must go just to deliver medicine and baby formula. And it is a measure of how desperate some have become to stop them. What does it say about the world when ships carrying stuffed animals are treated as threats? When governments rush to criminalise aid rather than the blockade that starves children? The real crime is not that the Handala sails to Gaza. The real crime is that it has to