Khaled Yousef and Mohammad Sio
08 October 2025•Update: 08 October 2025
JERUSALEM/ISTANBUL
Israeli authorities are on alert over fears of possible clashes with another flotilla heading to break the blockade on the Gaza Strip, local media reported Tuesday.
Channel 13 said the Israeli army is preparing to attack the flotilla, which is carrying dozens of activists from Türkiye.
It said there are fears that the confrontation could escalate into violent clashes and possibly resemble the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, when Israeli commandos stormed a Turkish-led aid ship bound for Gaza, killing 10 activists and injuring 56 others.
Israeli security agencies are preparing for complex scenarios and resistance to the takeover of the flotilla, which set sail from Italy toward Gaza.
Security officials reportedly assess that this confrontation could be more complicated than with the previous flotilla, which included Swedish activist Greta Thunberg. Forces are now on heightened alert for any scenario, the channel added.
The latest humanitarian flotilla bound for Gaza is now 150 nautical miles (277 kilometers) from its destination, its organizers said late Tuesday.
“Our flotilla is now within 150 nautical miles of Gaza’s coast, nearing the zone where earlier Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Global Sumud Flotilla missions faced attacks from Israel,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said in a statement on its official Telegram channel.
Around 100 people are on board the nine-boat convoy, part of the FFC’s “Thousand Madleens” mission to challenge the illegal Israeli siege on Gaza.
The FFC, established in 2010, has launched dozens of missions aimed at delivering aid and drawing global attention to the humanitarian crisis in the Israel-besieged Gaza Strip.
The latest convoy set sail after Israeli naval forces attacked and seized more than 40 boats sailing to Gaza last week to challenge the Israeli blockade and detained more than 450 activists on board.
Israel, as the occupying power, has previously attacked Gaza-bound ships, seized their cargo and deported the activists on board.
Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza, home to nearly 2.4 million people, for nearly 18 years and further tightened the siege in March, when it closed border crossings and blocked food and medicine deliveries, pushing the enclave into famine.
Since October 2023, Israeli bombardments have killed more than 67,100 Palestinians in the enclave, most of them women and children, and rendered it uninhabitable.
