By: Fern Sidman

A flotilla of 20 boats carrying activists from 44 countries — including climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham, and figures tied to terrorist-affiliated organizations — aborted its much-publicized attempt to breach Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza on Sunday, returning to port in Barcelona after only a few hours at sea.

According to a report that appeared on Monday in The Algemeiner, such flotilla missions are never simply about “humanitarian aid.” They have long been designed as political spectacles, choreographed to delegitimize Israel’s right to self-defense and to portray Hamas-run Gaza as besieged solely by Israeli policies, while eliding the terrorist group’s own responsibility for sparking conflict.

This latest effort, organized under the banner of the “Global Sumud Flotilla Mission,” was touted by organizers as the largest attempt yet to challenge Israel’s maritime defenses. But its ambitions were cut short when 35-mile-per-hour winds forced the convoy back to port. In a statement, organizers claimed: “We conducted a sea trial and then returned to port to allow the storm to pass. This meant delaying our departure to avoid risking complications with the smaller boats.”

While the weather was cited as the reason for postponement, Israeli officials had already made preparations to intercept the flotilla, with reports suggesting that participants would be detained under “terrorist-level” conditions upon arrival — a reflection of concerns not only about the political theater of the mission but also the presence of individuals with direct ties to designated terrorist organizations.

The attempt immediately drew comparisons to the infamous May 2010 Free Gaza Movement flotilla, which ended in deadly clashes when activists violently resisted Israeli naval commandos who sought to reroute their vessel to Ashdod. Ten were killed and dozens injured, marking one of the most notorious confrontations at sea between Israel and pro-Hamas activists.

As The Algemeiner report noted, the specter of that episode hangs over every subsequent flotilla. For Israel, the precedent proved that such missions are not merely “peaceful protests” but can turn violent, with participants including terrorist groups seeking confrontation. For organizers, the 2010 mission remains a touchstone of perceived “martyrdom” in service of the Palestinian cause.

What distinguished the current attempt — beyond its celebrity participants — was the confirmed involvement of Jaldia Abubakra, a Madrid-based activist and co-founder of Masar Badil, or the Palestinian Revolutionary Path. Masar Badil is closely linked with Samidoun, a radical network described by both the United States and Canada as a “sham charity” funneling resources to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist-Leninist group designated internationally as a terrorist organization.

As The Algemeiner has chronicled, Samidoun has repeatedly shown its true face. The group not only celebrated Hamas’s October 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel as “heroic resistance” but also hosted a webinar with a Hamas operative pledging to repeat such slaughters “again and again” until Israel is destroyed.

Germany moved to ban Samidoun outright after its demonstrations in Berlin devolved into open antisemitic incitement, with participants chanting “Death to the Jews.” The US and Canada sanctioned the group in October 2024, stressing that Samidoun disguises itself as a “prisoner solidarity network” while serving as a financial and propaganda arm of the PFLP.

Abubakra, unrepentant about her affiliations, issued a statement before embarking on the flotilla: “This is my journey to Palestine. I am returning with the Freedom Flotilla, together with all the free people who have decided to break the siege, support the steadfastness of our people, and expose the crimes of the occupation before the world.”

Her rhetoric — declaring all of Israel “from the river to the sea” as occupied land — underscores the ideological alignment between flotilla organizers and those who seek the eradication of the Jewish state.

Abubakra’s co-founder in Masar Badil, Khaled Barakat, is an established Samidoun leader and long-time PFLP operative. In 2024, the US barred Barakat from entering the country due to his terrorist ties. That same year, he publicly praised airplane hijackings as “one of the most important tactics” of Palestinian terrorists.

Barakat, along with Samidoun international coordinator Charlotte Kates, was even present at the funeral of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in February 2025, paying homage to the leader of yet another Iran-backed terrorist entity committed to Israel’s destruction.

Kates herself has been unabashed in her support for armed “resistance.” In August 2024 she wrote on social media: “We stand with the Palestinian resistance, with Hezbollah, with the resistance and people in Iraq. These are our troops, our freedom fighters, and we support them!”

Later that month, she traveled to Iran to accept the “Islamic Human Rights and Human Dignity Award” alongside Palestinian Islamic Jihad chief Ziyad Nakhaleh and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, the latter killed by Israel in 2024.

That individuals such as Abubakra and Kates were tied to the latest flotilla is not incidental — it is emblematic of the way ostensibly “humanitarian” missions have been appropriated by radical groups as vehicles for advancing an anti-Israel, and often openly pro-terror, agenda.

The presence of Thunberg and Cunningham brought international media attention that flotilla organizers could never have mustered otherwise. For activists, the pairing of a teen climate icon and a Hollywood star with hardened anti-Israel ideologues is deliberate: it creates an image of a broad, global “rainbow coalition” united behind Gaza, even as its core includes groups tied to violent extremism.

As The Algemeiner report indicated, this is the precise strategy warned of by counterterror experts: to launder radical agendas through Western progressive movements. Danielle Pletka of the American Enterprise Institute cautioned in a related context: “They need a rainbow coalition of people who will support the ideology they promote: sometimes it will be Islamism, sometimes antisemitism, sometimes anti-Israel.”

The effect is to blur the line between legitimate humanitarian concern and collaboration with those who glorify terror. A flotilla adorned with Thunberg’s moral branding but infiltrated by Samidoun operatives creates precisely this dissonant, dangerous mix.

For Israel, flotillas such as this pose a vexing challenge. On one hand, the naval blockade of Gaza — recognized as lawful by the United Nations’ Palmer Report in 2011 — is a critical security measure to prevent weapons smuggling to Hamas. On the other, the international optics of intercepting vessels laden with activists, celebrities, and journalists can play into the hands of those seeking to cast Israel as an aggressor.

Israeli officials, aware of this double bind, reportedly planned to detain the flotilla participants under harsh “terrorist-level” conditions, underscoring that they viewed the mission as more than a symbolic stunt. The presence of operatives linked to groups like Samidoun provided justification for such preparations.

As The Algemeiner report emphasized, the latest flotilla is not merely a failed voyage disrupted by high winds. It is part of a larger campaign in which radical anti-Israel organizations ally themselves with global leftist and progressive icons, framing anti-Israel activism as a natural extension of environmentalism, social justice, or human rights.

The involvement of individuals who eulogize Hezbollah leaders, celebrate Hamas massacres, and praise hijackings makes clear what lies beneath the surface gloss: a movement not of peace, but of enmity toward Israel’s existence itself.

The aborted Barcelona-to-Gaza flotilla will likely be reattempted once seas are calmer. But whether or not it ever sets sail, it has already succeeded in its true aim: capturing headlines, mobilizing celebrities, and pushing an anti-Israel narrative into mainstream discourse.

As The Algemeiner report observed, the troubling presence of Samidoun and Masar Badil leaders should dispel any illusion that these missions are benign humanitarian enterprises. They are political weapons, staged not to bring aid to Gazans, but to delegitimize Israel’s sovereignty, rehabilitate terrorist-linked actors, and transform the discourse around Gaza into one that excuses — or even glorifies — Hamas and its allies.