Israel’s Latest Freedom Flotilla Ambush Has Backfired Already!

Right, so Israel would have you believe that powdered milk and nappies pose an existential threat to its security. That is, if you accept the logic that a British-flagged trawler stuffed with baby formula is somehow some kind of urgent target, but it’s hardly the first time is it? This is however apparently the logic of the Gaza blockade, where feeding starving infants is treated as subversion, and unarmed humanitarian workers are kidnapped at gunpoint in international waters.
The Handala—a former Norwegian trawler turned lifeline for Gaza’s children—wasn’t sailing under cover of darkness to smuggle weapons; it livestreamed its entire voyage to prove exactly what it was carrying. But when your war strategy depends on starving 100,000 babies into submission, even milk powder becomes contraband. And while Israel dispatched drones and commandos to silence the ship, Britain—whose flag it carried and whose citizen, Chloé Ludden, now sits in detention—did precisely nothing again.
Starving babies is not fighting Hamas. But it is a war crime—and those who stand by, from Tel Aviv to Downing Street, are not bystanders. They are collaborators.
Right, so in the pre-dawn hours of 26 July, the Handala floated in the eastern Mediterranean under the watchful eye of Israeli drones, not all that far from where its predecessor the Madleen was intercepted and once again it has happened in international waters. This modest British-flagged fishing trawler, repurposed for humanitarian work, was not carrying arms or militants. Its cargo was entirely civilian as we know to be the case with all Freedom Flotilla missions now: baby formula, nappies, paediatric medicines, and other life-saving supplies for Gaza’s children – only a token amount, it is just one small ship. Yet Israel treated this ship as if it were an enemy warship, scrambling its navy and dispatching commandos to board it in international waters, just as we saw them do before. The passengers—activists, medics, journalists, elected politicians—were held at gunpoint and forcibly dragged to Israel. Among them was Chloé Fiona Ludden, a British citizen and former UN scientist, whose detention in these circumstances raises a fundamental question: why is feeding starving infants now considered a threat to Israel’s security and how mad must you be to believe otherwise and not oppose such a nonsense?
The humanitarian emergency in Gaza provides the immediate context for this question. The Gaza Media Office estimates that 100,000 infants are at risk of starvation due to the blockade’s prohibition on baby formula entering the territory. Médecins Sans Frontières reports that severe acute malnutrition among children under five has tripled in just the past two weeks.
This is not collateral damage in a war against Hamas; it is deliberate. Starvation as a method of warfare is explicitly outlawed under international humanitarian law, yet Israel has weaponised hunger to collectively punish a civilian population. The Handala sought to challenge that system of collective punishment. Its voyage was not merely a mission of mercy but a calculated act of political protest, designed to expose to the world the inhumanity of the blockade.
And yet, this is not solely a story of Israel’s actions. It is also a story of Western complicity. Britain, as the flag state of the Handala, just as it was for the Madleen and in this instance home to one of the detained crew, has legal obligations under maritime law to protect the vessel and its passengers and with an RAF base on nearby Cyprus, there’s no excusing not doing so. But Prime Minister Keir Starmer—a man who repeatedly speaks of his commitment to a “rules-based international order”—has done nothing, just as he did nothing last time. He has allowed a British flagged vessel to be seized again, once more demonstrating Britain will not protect you from Israel at sea, not even if Britons might actually be on board. How can this be seen as anything other than collaboration therefore? He can keep sending spy flights over Gaza for Israel, but can’t use that same airbase to protect a British asset and civilian? The optics of his inaction over the Madleen were scandalous, but this time they are so much worse. People will rightly be asking just who is he running this country in the interests of?
The Israeli blockade of Gaza is not limited to food of course, their crimes run much deeper than that. Israel has restricted entry of water filters, paediatric antibiotics, incubator parts, and even replacement batteries for medical equipment. The cumulative effect is catastrophic. Gaza’s hospitals, already crippled by bombings, now lack the basic materials to save children from otherwise preventable deaths. The ban on baby formula epitomises this cruelty: no one can credibly argue that powdered milk poses a military threat to Israel.
Starvation is being deployed as a weapon of war, which is the truth that cuts much more to the heart of the matter and which is prohibited under Article 54 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions. Israel, as the occupying power, also has obligations under Articles 55 and 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to provide food and medicine to the civilian population or at the very least to allow humanitarian relief. Instead, it is doing the opposite—deliberately obstructing aid, therefore is committing genocide and we’re all just watching it happen as leaders wring their hands and in some cases it seems, do Israel’s bidding still.
The Handala was, therefore, more than a symbolic act just as its predecessors were; it was an emergency intervention in the face of a man-made famine. To portray its passengers as “security threats” is not only dishonest but a grotesque distortion of reality. To not protect them in their humanitarian mission is complicity.
The Handala set sail from Syracuse, Italy, on 13 July, operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a network that has challenged Israel’s blockade for more than a decade. The name Handala itself was deliberate: it invokes the iconic Palestinian cartoon character symbolising steadfast resistance. From the beginning, the mission was as much about drawing attention to the blockade as delivering aid.
Before even leaving European waters, sabotage attempts underscored the danger. A rope was discovered tangled in the propeller, and chemical contamination of the ship’s water supply left two crew members severely ill. Though no state was directly implicated, activists strongly suspect Israeli involvement, citing similar incidents in previous flotilla missions.
As the ship approached Gaza, the atmosphere grew tense. Press TV reported Israeli drones buzzing directly overhead for hours, at times swooping low enough to intimidate the crew.
The crew’s composition reflected the mission’s political symbolism. It included Chris Smalls, founder of the Amazon Labour Union; Australian journalist Tan Safi; French-Swedish MEP Emma Fourreau; and Moroccan Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed El Bakkali. The presence of Western citizens and journalists was no accident; it was meant to force governments to take notice if Israel acted against them and its all eyes on Gaza once again now. That gamble, however, failed, particularly with the British government.
Yesterday, Israeli naval forces boarded the Handala in international waters, around 70 nautical miles off Gaza. According to Skwawkbox, commandos held the passengers at gunpoint, ordered them to the deck, cut all communications, and forcibly towed the ship to Ashdod.
This operation violated multiple aspects of international law once again, but who’s upholding it? The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) guarantees freedom of navigation in international waters. A state may only board a foreign vessel in exceptional circumstances such as piracy, slave trafficking, or an imminent security threat. Baby formula doesn’t count therefore. By boarding the Handala, Israel also violated the principle of flag state sovereignty, which grants the UK exclusive jurisdiction over vessels flying its flag.
Britain’s role in this affair is damning. As the flag state, the UK has a legal duty under UNCLOS to protect vessels flying its flag. The Humanti Project states clearly: “The UK has a legal obligation to intervene diplomatically to protect the Freedom Flotilla from unlawful interference”.
Yet Keir Starmer has done nothing. There was no pre-emptive warning to Israel, no diplomatic protest after the seizure, and no public demand for the release of Chloé Ludden. Skwawkbox captured the outrage succinctly: “Chloé Ludden is a UK citizen. She was just kidnapped by Israel. What are you going to do, Keir?”.
Starmer’s silence is consistent with his broader policy of appeasement toward Israel. His government continues to export arms, resists calls for sanctions, and offers diplomatic cover in international forums. Even within the British establishment, discontent is growing. Over 300 Foreign Office staff have expressed opposition to government policy on Gaza, some threatening to resign in protest. Britain’s refusal to defend a British-flagged vessel and its own citizen is not mere cowardice; it is complicity in a war crime. This British government has chosen a side and its not ours!
Israel justifies its blockade by claiming it is necessary to weaken Hamas. But starving babies does not weaken Hamas; it strengthens it. Denying baby formula and medical supplies fuels anger, radicalises communities, and validates Hamas’s narrative that Israel’s real war is against all Palestinians. This is not a war on Hamas. This is terror against Gaza’s children.
Despite Israel’s repression, flotilla missions like the Handala persist. This persistence itself is significant. The seizure of a British-flagged ship carrying Western citizens may prove a strategic miscalculation for the genocidaires. Just as the 2010 Mavi Marmara raid galvanised global outrage and spurred the BDS movement, and the Conscience and the Madleen since, the image of Western activists being detained for carrying baby formula should increase global outrage, but its us ordinary people that are outraged that must vent our outrage towards our elected officials to damn well do something.
The Handala is more than a ship; it is a moral test. Its seizure in international waters lays bare the reality of Israel’s blockade once again: this is not about Hamas; it is about breaking a people. Starving babies is not a counterterrorism strategy; it is a war crime. Those who support it through silence are not neutral; they are collaborators.
Keir Starmer’s government has failed this test. By refusing to defend a British-flagged ship and a British citizen, it has demonstrated that the so-called “rules-based international order” is applied selectively and in this case not even to a British citizen. Starmer’s government won’t even protect a British citizen from Israel nor a British flagged Freedom Flotilla vessel for the second time now. I don’t care if you agree with what these guys are doing or not, that simple fact should chill you to the bone. If feeding starving children is now a criminal act, then the crime is not against Israel’s security but against Gaza’s right to exist.
History will remember the Handala not only for its courage but for the cowardice it exposed in others. The criminality it exposed in others. And the question will remain long after the famine has passed: when babies were starving, and those who tried to help were kidnapped at gunpoint, what did you do? In Starmer’s case, aided and abetted it seems.
Well a great many Britons are not having a bar of this it has to be said and with a new political avenue having opened up to them, their signing up to taking Starmer and the rest of the establishment down. Jeremy Corbyn has launched a new party, it doesn’t even have a name, but such is the disgust at British mainstream politics, it hasn’t needed one to surge rapidly towards already becoming Britain’s largest party. Get all the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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