This article was originally published on JNS.com on September 6, 2025.
The latest Gaza “flotilla” that set sail from the Italian city of Genoa last Sunday is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions.
Far from a humanitarian mission, the 70-vessel spectacle is a costly act of political theater—designed to prop up Hamas, demonize Israel and manipulate European opinion in the run-up to the United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood later in September.
Italian politicians even placed four of their representatives aboard, asking Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to shield them. Yet these same activists never bothered to demand the release of the Israeli hostages—reduced to skin and bones in Hamas captivity.
Their silence exposes the truth: the flotilla’s mission is not compassion, but provocation.
Organizers insist they are delivering “vital aid.” But the facts tell another story. On Sept. 4 alone, 221 trucks of food and supplies entered Gaza through Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings, with 331 more waiting. In just four weeks, 50 million meals have been delivered. Photos from Gaza show functioning supermarkets—and even a “Café Nutella.”
Where is the hunger? In areas where Hamas hijacks aid, beats civilians who try to distribute it, and seizes supplies for its fighters. Hunger is created by Hamas—not by Israel. If the flotilla truly cared, its ships would dock at Ashdod, where Israel facilitates aid transfer under secure, internationally recognized procedures. Instead, the flotilla sails directly toward confrontation, aiming for headlines rather than relief.
The “gifts” carried on these boats could have been replaced a hundredfold had the organizers donated their funds to legitimate aid agencies. Instead, they chose confrontation at sea, timed to coincide with French President Emmanuel Macron’s push for Palestinian statehood at the U.N.
The flotilla is part of the same strategy: to accuse Israel of “genocide” and “starvation” based on Hamas’s inflated, unverified casualty figures—figures already discredited by independent studies such as those from the Begin-Sadat Center.
The fraud is clear: fabricated death tolls, fake “experts” peddling Hamas numbers, and a chorus of Western intellectuals eager to applaud. Behind it all is the same old hatred.
The truth is stark. Israel is battling Hamas, a ruthless terrorist organization embedded in a densely populated civilian environment. Hamas does not wear uniforms. It deliberately blends into the civilian population, ensuring maximum civilian casualties, while Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to minimize them. Hamas thrives on lies and death.
And yet, European activists and intellectuals—like those in Venice who cheer Hamas—choose to absorb and amplify those lies. They consume the propaganda and ignore the reality: that Israel fights not only for its own people but also for the principles of freedom and dignity that Hamas tramples.
The flotilla is not about humanitarian aid. It is a propaganda weapon—an expensive fraud designed to demonize Israel and legitimize Hamas. What it delivers is not food, but hatred and lies.
Israel will stop this flotilla, because it must. And when it does, the world will face a choice: stand with a terrorist organization and its enablers, or with the only democracy in the Middle East fighting for its survival.
