by IWU-FI in the Left Front -Unity (FITU) 14 April 2026
With approximately 100 vessels and 1,000 participants, it will be the largest in history.
April 14, 2026. Last Sunday, 12 April, a new Global Sumud Flotilla departed from the port of Moll de la Fusta in Barcelona, Spain, bound for Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to break the genocidal blockade imposed by Israel against the Palestinian people.
Forty vessels departed from Barcelona carrying nearly 300 activists from more than 35 countries, including a significant delegation of doctors, healthcare professionals, and educators. This time, a land convoy will accompany the vessels as they travel across the Mediterranean Sea from various points. It will travel along the coast of North Africa with the objective of opening the Rafah crossing, which remains closed by Israel, preventing the entry of humanitarian aid.
The ships that departed on Sunday from the port of Moll de la Fusta are just the first wave of the Flotilla, which aims to be the largest humanitarian mission in history bound for Gaza. The goal is to complete 100 vessels and more than 1,000 participants from 70 countries.
The ships that left Barcelona will pass through Italy, Greece, and Turkey, where more vessels will join them. This group will include some twenty ships from the Thousand Madleens collective, which departed on April 4th from the port of Marseille in France.
The Flotilla is now sailing in the Mediterranean at a time of great tension in the Middle East, a result of the US-Israeli aggression against Iran, and amidst a fragile ceasefire. Meanwhile, Netanyahu’s far-right and criminal government continues its bombing campaign against Lebanon, while advancing its occupation of vast areas in the south of the country.
The sham peace agreement imposed by Trump in Gaza has failed, and Israel continues its aggression. Since the ceasefire signed last October, Israel has killed 750 Gazans. The humanitarian crisis is deepening because of restrictions imposed by Israel on the entry of food, medicine, gas, and fuel. And the Zionist army maintains its occupation of a large part of the Gaza Strip.
The genocide continues as Israel intensifies its repression of the Palestinian people in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. On 30 March, the Israeli parliament passed a law that would allow the death penalty and the use of hanging for Palestinian political prisoners. The Palestinian resistance released their hostages last year, but Israel continues to hold over 9,600 Palestinian political prisoners. Israel keeps over 3,500 of these prisoners in administrative detention, meaning they face no formal charges.
As we did last year, the International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI) will take part in the Global Sumud Flotilla, this time through Mónica Schlotthauer. Mónica Schlotthauer, a member of the Buenos Aires Provincial Legislature in Argentina, represents the Socialist Left/FITU coalition and serves as a railway worker’s delegate. He is now an organiser of the Argentine delegation to the Global Sumud Flotilla.
IWU-FI delegation at Muelle de la Fusta, before the Global Sumud set sail. The image shows leaders of I (Internationalist Fight) accompanying IWU-FI crew members Ezequiel Peressini and Mónica Schlotthauer.
The IWU-FI, as part of the global movement in solidarity with the Palestinian people, is participating directly on the vessels and also through all its sections in different countries with the aim of achieving the broadest possible unity of action to revitalise support for Gaza and the Palestinian people. The Flotilla can be a spark that makes it possible to resume global mobilisation to the levels seen last year, deepening Israel’s isolation worldwide.
We call on the peoples of the world, trade unions, grassroots organisations, the student, environmental, women, and LGBTQ+ movements, and all those who identify as democratic, to give their full support to the Sumud Global Flotilla, which expresses the solidarity of the world’s peoples with Gaza and all of Palestine.
Let us fight against the genocide of Netanyahu and Israel and to deepen international solidarity for the freedom of political prisoners, to condemn the plan for new settlements in the West Bank, and to secure the urgent entry of humanitarian aid and the opening of the Rafah crossing.
For the immediate withdrawal of all Israeli troops from Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, and Lebanon! Stop the imperialist and Zionist aggression against Iran! We reject the ethnic cleansing in Palestine and the plans of Trump and Netanyahu to turn Gaza into a resort for the world’s millionaires! Stop Zionist apartheid! For a single, secular, democratic, and non-racist Palestine! A free Palestine from the river to the sea!
