by IWU-FI Press
This interview was conducted 24 hours before the flotilla was illegally intercepted by Israel. Mónica Schlotthauer is a member of parliament for the Socialist Left (IS) and the FITU (Left Front Unity) in Argentina, and a member of the Sumud Global Flotilla aboard the ship Batolo. Mónica conducted the interview with the Catalan-Palestinian activist Saif Abukeshek on the Batolo, before Saif transferred to another vessel.
Mónica Schlotthauer is a railway worker in Argentina and a member of the International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI). She was also kidnapped by the Israeli army in international waters near Crete, Greece, and later released and taken to Istanbul, Turkey.
Saif has been kidnapped and detained by the genocidal state of Israel, which is holding him in prison along with the Brazilian Thiago Avila. The world is calling for their immediate release.
Saif’s statements demonstrate his character as a democratic and humanitarian fighter, consistent in his defense of the Palestinian people and all the peoples of the world.
Monica: Saif, for the people in Argentina and other countries that want to know you… a little about you, where you are from, a bit about your story.
My name is Saif. I was born in a refugee camp in the northern West Bank called Ascar, which is near the city of Nablus. My family is from a town near Jaffa[1], where my father was born in 1948. My full name is a bit long: Saif Ashfem Camel Yavergsev Mahmud Abukeshek. They were all born there except for me, since I was born in the refugee camp. I grew up during the First Intifada. Both my parents are political prisoners, and I had my own experiences in the West Bank. I was arrested several times and shot at several times during demonstrations. And well, as happens to all Palestinians, every Palestinian family has at least one member who has suffered something from the occupation. I think we were quite lucky compared to other families who have lost family members. I live in Barcelona, I have two girls and a boy, and I do what I do for them first and foremost, and for the future of all of us.
Monica: So, how would you introduce the Sumud Global Flotilla? How did it come about, and what is its objective?
Well, we know that the flotillas first emerged in 2008 when the blockade of Gaza began, and since then, initiatives have been organised. Last year, after many years without international campaigns, there were three campaigns simultaneously. There was the Madlyn, which was the ship that started the journey to break the blockade; there was the Sumud Convoy from North Africa; and there was the global march to Gaza, where 4,000 people from 80 countries travelled to Cairo to march towards Rafah and try to break the blockade.
So, we were considering these three movements, just to see how things were going and organising communication jointly. When all three initiatives faced repression, we said: let’s join forces, let’s talk and coordinate a single campaign, and that’s how the Global Sumud Flotilla was born.
Shortly after we started working together, Sumud Santara, from Southeast Asia, also joined us. And these four coalitions have been working together ever since. The flotilla was organised last year, and it was the largest flotilla that attempted to break the blockade in the midst of the genocide. And now we’re back again with an even larger flotilla, also within a very complicated political context. But after total silence for the last six months, something they called a fictitious “ceasefire”—in which Israel murdered more than 740 Palestinians and violated the ceasefire agreements more than 2,073 times. And just two days ago, they announced they’re going to extend the Yellow Line, which was theoretically a temporary line until the phases change. But the reality on the ground hasn’t changed; the genocide hasn’t stopped. Israel has maintained and expanded those borders. That is, to colonize more land. In the West Bank, they passed more laws to confiscate more land and displace more Palestinians. They approved the death penalty for Palestinian prisoners, which is only applied to Palestinians. In addition to the torture, in addition to all the physical and sexual abuse they are committing against the prisoners.
So, in these six months, during which they’re supposedly talking about a peace process and a ceasefire, Israel has only intensified its aggression, attacking Palestinians more and more, bombing them with total impunity internationally, with the complicity of governments and the European Union, which just two days ago voted to extend the association agreement with Israel.
We’re launching this initiative in a really complicated but necessary context. It’s quite different from six months ago when… We set sail from Barcelona on August 31st. A very, very different situation, but a necessary one.
Monica: Could you summarise the main differences?
Well, first, the level of mobilisation. Last year, during the genocide, there were many mobilisations in many parts of the world, and now, for the last six months, there have been very few. The media focus is also different. Last year, there was a lot of talk about Palestine and Gaza, but for the last six months, Gaza hasn’t been mentioned at all. The political aspect is different. There was pressure in the streets, many governments were already involved, making statements and taking measures, but for the last six months, the entire political process regarding Palestine has shifted. The level of risk is also higher because we’re talking about an unstable situation with the war with Iran and the attacks in Lebanon.
So, all of this is very different compared to last year, but we’ve managed to mobilise more people and more boats. In the first week of the flotilla, we’ve already managed to get people talking about Gaza again. We’ve had 244 million interactions on social media with the posts we’re publishing. So, as a primary objective, we’re succeeding in raising awareness about Palestine and Gaza.
We’ve also taken a different approach within the political framework. That is, we’ve worked to create a different political impact than last year. We organised a congress in Brussels with the participation of more than 300 politicians from around the world to initiate a Brussels Declaration on the Palestinian people’s maritime rights. It addresses self-determination, all the human rights violations, and the death sentences imposed on prisoners, thus creating a political foundation to support the flotilla. And we’ve already begun receiving statements from various members of parliament. Twenty-five Colombian parliamentarians have issued a declaration of support for the flotilla. We’re also being contacted by several other parliamentarians who now want to join us in the next phase and participate with the ships.
So, one of our objectives, which is political impact, is already being achieved. For the first time, a civilian fleet attempted to divert a cargo ship—one of the largest internationally—that is complicit in the genocide. This ship was carrying materials used to manufacture artillery in Israel, which is then used to bomb Palestinians and perpetuate the genocide.
In reality, although Israel commits crimes in Palestine, it is being supported and facilitated by European and international governments to commit these crimes. Those who send them weapons, those who send them materials, those who provide them with political, media, and financial cover to commit these crimes. They are not just silent accomplices; they are active accomplices in the genocide.
Monica: Regarding the controversy that Francesca Albanese[2] raised at this meeting in Brussels, what is your perspective?
I believe that, frankly, we are not interested in engaging in public debates about statements made by one person or another. Palestine needs all kinds of mobilisation, a continuous call to action, so that work can be done on land, at sea, in ports, in schools, universities, and other political spaces. And that’s what we’ve been doing. We have a working group of campaigns on land that is coordinating with students and workers. (…) It’s part of the political work we’ve done through the Brussels Declaration, and it’s working towards a future political network. This work doesn’t just end with the flotilla; it continues after the flotilla.
We are working on the issue of visibility and communication so that Palestine can be maintained. My invitation to all those who are calling for other actions is to do them. To those who are saying we have to block the ports—I agree, we have to block the ports—then do it. But to organise and mobilise one thing, you don’t need to discredit another. What we need is unity. What we need are voices calling for mobilisations, calling for people to organise. There were six months of silence, six months without mobilisations, and we haven’t heard any voices calling for those mobilisations. The moment the flotilla is at sea, we must support it.
There’s a very important point, which I already mentioned in a previous communication, about symbolism. We have to be very careful how we use these terms because we not only discredit hundreds of people participating in direct action at sea, like the flotilla, but we also discredit long histories of nonviolent direct action. Starting with the Palestinians: the three-year strike of 1936, the First Intifada. a, the Palestinian Great March of Return in Gaza. All of these are mobilisations, like the Salt March, led by Mahatma Gandhi[3], or the prisoners’ hunger strikes. If direct action is a challenge to politics, it’s a challenge to governments that forces change. We have to see how we can create unity, how we can create a diverse space for mobilisations and support all initiatives. And where we can focus our energy, we have to focus it there.
Monica: And what about the land convoy?
Well, it’s leaving; the convoy is in its final stages of preparation. It will begin leaving Mauritania in the next few days and will then travel to Libya, where another 400 people will participate internationally. More than 30 or 40 countries are participating. There will be more than 40 trucks of humanitarian aid, and we hope that the convoy’s arrival in Gaza will coincide with our own arrival in Gaza. By sea and by land, we are going to break the blockade.
Monica: What’s your opinion on whether there can be peace in the Middle East for the Palestinians, with the State of Israel acting as policeman?
When we talk about a peace process, where certain conditions must be met to create space for a Palestinian state, and you systematically confiscate land, displace more Palestinians, isolate Palestinian villages, and open roads that Palestinians can’t use, those aren’t signs of peace. Furthermore, when you start increasing the number of Palestinian prisoners during those same years—that is, instead of releasing Palestinian prisoners, you imprison more Palestinians—we have never seen any intention on Israel’s part to pursue a peace process.
Israel always repeats the same story, and many people around the world repeat it about Hamas… Hamas was created in the late 1980s. Before Hamas was created, Israel had already been occupying Palestine for 40 years. We’re talking about genocide now, and many people think it began on October 7th. The genocide has been going on for 80 years, and there are many crimes Israel has committed, many ethnic cleansings, many attacks before these last three years. Furthermore, in Gaza itself, there were attacks in 2008, 2010, 2014, 2018, 2020, and 2022, with thousands upon thousands of people killed.
We must understand that when a government begins by declaring that there is no such thing as Palestine, that the Palestinians do not exist, when its own leaders say that they are animals and that they are going to kill them all, that children are criminals, that children are terrorists, both those inside and outside of Palestine, then for us to talk about any peace resolution, the Zionist movement must end. It is a racist, discriminatory, fascist movement that does not accept the existence of another people. They want to displace and completely eliminate an indigenous people of this land. So we really focus on what kind of state we’re going to build—one state or two states—and we lose sight of the details of the mechanisms that can impede any peace process. These mechanisms begin with the application of international law, with the implementation of international resolutions, and the end of the Zionist movement.
Monica: A message for everyone listening.
We are here, setting sail for Gaza with a determination, with a conviction that the people always succeed, the people always triumph. Our initiative, our flotilla to break the blockade, cannot succeed without action on the ground.
We are calling on people everywhere to rise up. Today, the issue is not Palestine; the issue is our humanity. What Israel is doing there, and what the United States is doing—we’ve seen the kidnapping of the president of Venezuela, the threat against Colombia, the blockade against Cuba. We’ve seen the war in Iran, we’ve seen how they initiated the division of Sudan and Somalia, the crimes committed in the Congo and many other countries around the world.
This is the politics, the system that works perfectly to repress us, to confiscate our rights. Rise up for our rights, rise up for our humanity, for our collective liberation.
What we are defending today for Palestine is the international defense of our humanity. I don’t want anyone to wake up one morning and look in the mirror and ask themselves what we have done to stop the genocide, or ask their grandchild, a child, what they have done to stop the genocide. Because the genocide is happening in Palestine today, but it is the genocide of our humanity if we don’t act today, if we don’t change this dark path they want to impose on our humanity. I don’t know what will become of our future. That is why we set sail, that is why we want people to rise up, to blockade the arms factories. a, which blocks the roads of complicity, which ends the governments that are complicit and act in your names. And we are going to protect ourselves because they act in their own self-interest, taking from the majority and giving to the few who want to profit from our rights and our resources. When we say never again, it is for everyone, not for some exclusive group. Never again for all.
[1] Jaffa was the most important economic, cultural, and urban centre of Arab Palestine before 1948, famous for its citrus industry. During the Nakba of 1948, Zionist forces displaced 95% of its population of more than 80,000 Palestinians
[2] Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Although he supported the Flotilla, at the Brussels, Belgium conference on April 22, 2026, he distanced himself from the 2026 action, questioning its significance and calling it “symbolic,” contrasting it with actions such as port blockades. His statement caused confusion and criticism within the Flotilla, which was already underway despite its inherent risks.
[3] The Salt March, led by Mahatma Gandhi from March 12 to April 6, 1930, was a pivotal campaign of peaceful civil disobedience against the British salt monopoly in India. Gandhi walked over 300 km from Sabarmati to Dandi to illegally collect salt, rallying thousands of people in a protest that weakened colonialism and ultimately culminated in India’s independence in 1947.
