Former Jamaat-I-Islami Senator (JI) Mushtaq Ahmad Khan will lead the Pakistani delegation aboard the Sumud’s global flotilla for the Gaza Strip, according to publications of his social media account on Friday.
Earlier this month, it was announced that Pakistan would join the Global Sumud flotilla to break the Israeli siege of Gaza, according to an Instagram post on the Palestine forum of Pak, a platform with the aim of advancing in the support of the Palestinian cause.
According to its website, the flotilla is a “coordinated and non -violent fleet of mostly small vessels sailing from ports through the Mediterranean to break the illegal siege of the Israeli occupation in Gaza”.
Reuters Reports that dozens of boats that transport help will leave Spain and Tunisia and sail towards Gaza’s strip. Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and Portuguese left policy Mariana Mortagua are among hundreds of people from 44 countries participating in the flotilla. Sumud It means “perseverance” in Arabic.
Among the participants is a delegation of five members of Pakistan, directed by former Senator Khan.
In comments a Dawn.comThe former senator said the flotilla, the largest civil aid mission in history, will leave the Tunisian capital on September 4.
“We will be trained on the ship and the trip from September 1 to 3 in Tunisia,” said the former senator. “There will be more than 100 ships from more than 50 countries … This is the largest humanitarian operation led by civilians,” he said.
“This flotilla is composed of boats of four different coalitions. One of them, the Sumud Nasantra, includes delegations of the Philippines, Thailand, Maldives, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Pakistan, which I am leading,” he added.
Other coalitions that participate in the flotilla include the Maghreb Sumud Flotilla, Freedom Flotilla Coalition and the Global Movement to Gaza.
“The freedom flotilla in Europe will depart from Barcelona, Spain, on September 1,” Khan said. “We are further, so we will start on September 4 and converge with the other ships in the Mediterranean on September 5. Then we will travel to Gaza through a sea route.”
The former senator emphasized that the flotilla is legal, not violent and peaceful.
“It is legal because we will travel from international waters, of which we have the transition to Palestinian waters, so we are not coming into contact with Israel,” he explained. “We only carry food and water.
“We need to break the blockade, establish a humanitarian assistance corridor and face genocide,” Khan said. “These are our goals.”
Khan said he was the only member of the delegation to arrive in Tunisia, since the rest of the delegation is struggling to obtain visas.
“At the moment, I am alone; however, I am trying to help the group members obtain visas. There are four men, none of whom are prominent political figures,” he explained.
In a Facebook post, the former senator said he had a meeting with the Pakistani ambassador to Tunisia, who was assured of total cooperation.
When asked about the difficulties or even the consequences of embarking on this trip to Gaza, the former senator painted three stages.
“There are three options. One is that we arrive in Gaza successfully and we can break the blockade and show the world what is happening there,” Khan said. “Another possibility is that they (Israel) can arrest us and deport us.”
The former senator could not rule out the possibility of death, remembering that in the past, Israel attacked and killed those who tried to challenge their dominance of the besieged enclave.
“We are putting ourselves at risk for the world to direct its attention to Gaza and move to stop the genocide,” he said.
This flotilla is the last attempt of the activists to break the blockade of the humanitarian aid of Tel Aviv in Gaza. The previous attempts of the Freedom Flotilla coalition, Handala and Madleen, ended up in the detention and deportation of the volunteers aboard.
Since October 7, 2023, Israeli attacks in Gaza have killed more than 63,000 people and wounded 157,951, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
The United Nations warned last week that with the Israeli forces that block the aid, half a million people face “catastrophic hunger” in Gaza, with famine conditions that will probably extend even more through the strip.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued its bombing after approving a plan to take control of the city of Gaza, qualifying it from the “last bastion of Hamas”.
