Israel Calls NATO Frigates Hamas – And Exposes Its Own Panic

Right, so for years Israel has sneered at Gaza flotillas as irritants and certainly this year they’ve had plenty of opportunity to do that as they’ve increased in number — a few activists in fishing boats, easy to smear as Hamas stooges, easy to swat aside. Well not this time. Not any more Now they are being joined by warships – not ones on exercises from Turkey and Egypt, but literal, actual warships. Spain has dispatched the Audaz from Cartagena, Italy has deployed not one but two frigates, and suddenly Tel Aviv faces an image it dreads and its arrogance perhaps one they never thought they would: European warships shadowing civilian aid boats while Israeli drones buzz overhead, to break their siege of Gaza. Ministers insist the blockade is “lawful,” spokesmen rant that Madrid and Rome are now “Hamas,” and yet the optics are absolutely devastating — the siege exposed not as strength, but as Israel’s brittle paranoia. When NATO frigates have to sail to shield a hospital ship from drones, the question is no longer whether the flotilla is reckless. The question is: how fragile must Israel be if flour and baby milk now has to sail under warship escort?
Right, so Israel’s Foreign Ministry thought it had its script ready to go. The Global Sumud Flotilla, it declared, was not humanitarian at all but a provocation. If it were really about aid, activists would unload in “any nearby port” outside Israel, even Israel’s Ashkelon as they had so generously offered, and the supplies could be “peacefully transferred” to Gaza. The blockade, it insisted, was “lawful.” Gaza, it repeated, is “Hamas territory.” And in case anyone missed the point, former spokesman Eylon Levy has gone further by inferring that: if the Spanish Navy so much as tried to breach the blockade, that would be “an act of war on the side of Hamas.” NATO frigates, have now been recast as terrorists. Spain and Italy, branded Hamas proxies, because everything is Hamas.
This absolute madness, this attempt to smear even sovereign navies now as “Hamas,” tells you everything about Israel’s state of mind. It is not confidence. It is absolute panic.
And then the images began to circulate. Fishing boats and ferries carrying flour and medicine. A ship named the Omar al-Mukhtar, after the Libyan anti-colonial fighter, equipped as a floating hospital. And above them: drones. Not one or two, but entire swarms circling overhead, buzzing and swooping, dropping flashbangs, jamming radios. Blasts in international waters, vessels damaged, activists crouching on decks. A nuclear-armed state, panicking at the sight of baby milk. A regional power treating gauze and syringes as existential threats to life as they know it.
But unlike flotillas past, this time something has very much changed. Civil society is no longer going to be sailing alone. Italy dispatched not one but two navy frigates, the Fasan and the Alpino. Spain sent the Audaz, a Maritime Action Ship sailing from Cartagena. NATO flags now heading for the blockade zone, escorting not gunboats but fishing boats, shadowing not smugglers but a floating hospital being stalked by drones, even though that Libyan vessel has yet to actually catch up to the main flotilla yet.
Drones circling a hospital ship under NATO frigate protection is what faces Israel now — and that is the nightmare Israel never wanted the world to see.
But of course its not just the hospital ship these warships are on their way to shadow, its fifty plus ships. Three hundred activists from forty-four countries. It is not a protest anymore; it is an international confrontation.
Spain has led the way. On 23 September, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez unveiled a decree imposing a total arms embargo on Israel. Defence exports and imports banned entirely. Dual-use technologies banned. Aircraft fuel banned. Even settlement goods prohibited from being imported or advertised. Economy Minister Carlos Cuerpo called it “a pioneering step at the international level.” I’d agree with that and we need to see more from others. Critics point out the decree still needs parliamentary ratification and contains a weasel clause allowing “derogations” for “national interest.” But the political headline is clear: Spain has moved beyond words into a major split from Israeli acquiescence.
Then came the naval deployment. After reports of the drone attacks, Madrid ordered the Audaz to sail. Its Defence Ministry stressed the mission was “humanitarian” and confined to international waters. But the meaning could not be clearer: Spain has put hard steel in the water to protect a flotilla branded “Hamas” by Israel. This is legitimacy shifted, not begged for. Civil society forcing a state to follow in its wake.
Italy’s stance is more tangled, but no less significant. Giorgia Meloni, the far-right prime minister rooted in post-fascist politics, dismissed the flotilla as “dangerous” and “irresponsible.” She insisted there was “no need to risk one’s own safety,” because, she claimed, “the competent authorities” could deliver aid “in a few hours.” The script again: trust the corridors, don’t freelance in a war zone. But her own defence minister, Guido Crosetto, appears to have broken ranks with that. He condemned the drone strikes as “totally unacceptable” and ordered the Fasan to assist. Hours later, he sent the Alpino too.
So the spectacle is this: a prime minister smearing the flotilla while her navy sails to shield it. There is a contradiction here, and I’ll come back to that. But it exposes the pressure Italy is under — pressure from its own citizens outraged by images of drones over aid ships, pressure from a Europe where Spain had already moved on sanctions, though Italy did send their first warship before Spain moved to do likewise, perhaps the fact Italy, who have not recognised Palestine, have shamed those who have, such as Spain to act, and perhaps others may do so yet as well, and pressure from the fact that ignoring the flotilla is no longer an option.
And this is where the legal dimension cuts deepest. Israel clings to the mantra of a “lawful naval blockade.” It has been repeated at every turn as though sheer repetition could make it true. But international humanitarian law does not support it. Blockades can be lawful under the San Remo Manual of 1994, but only under strict conditions. They must be declared and maintained. They cannot be used to starve civilians. They cannot block humanitarian aid. They cannot impose disproportionate suffering relative to their military purpose. Gaza’s blockade fails every single test.
Eighteen years of siege have brought not military necessity but humanitarian collapse. UN agencies have documented malnutrition, preventable deaths, the deliberate throttling of supplies. The International Committee of the Red Cross has declared that blockades which cause starvation are unlawful. The ICJ has linked collective punishment to breaches of international law. The ICC has jurisdiction over starvation crimes and has opened files on Gaza of course.
And then there is medical neutrality. The Geneva Conventions make it explicit: hospitals, ambulances, and medical units are protected. A ship designated as a mobile medical clinic is entitled to that protection. Drones circling above such a ship, treating it as a threat, is not ambiguity. It is violation. When NATO frigates sail to shield such a vessel and others, then Israel does not look like a state upholding law; it looks like a state trampling all over it. Which of course it is.
This is why Spain and Italy stress “humanitarian rescue” and “international waters.” They know the legal stakes. They will not say they are confronting Israel. But by putting frigates at sea, they have made their position clear: they do not accept that Israel’s blockade is lawful. And that is the battlefield Israel cannot win on.
Zoom out to the European political map and the consequences come into sharper focus. Spain’s embargo decree was as much about domestic politics as international leadership. Pedro Sánchez governs a fragile coalition under heavy pressure from Podemos and other left partners. Spanish civil society has mobilised like never before: dockworkers refusing to load arms for Israel, city councils declaring solidarity, protests filling the streets. The embargo was not just morality; it was political survival. But it was also precedent. The first Western state to impose a total arms embargo on Israel in the midst of its Gaza campaign.
Italy, meanwhile, embodies contradiction. Meloni, bound to far-right Atlanticist loyalties, parrots the line about flotillas being dangerous. Yet Crosetto, confronted with drones striking civilians, moves the navy into position. That tension will not go away. Italy is being dragged by circumstance into places its Prime Minister does not by her rhetoric want to go. But this is the classic double speak of Italian politics.
Meloni is far right, but she’s also done stuff that you’d associate with the left – allowing the navy to aid the flotilla, but she’s also imposed windfall taxes on banks and she recently set a target for another 500,000 migrants. The she swings back the other way and does something like banning surrogacy of LGBT+ couples. Where the dividing line of right and left is often seen as obvious, in Italy it isn’t. Meloni is a populist-authoritarian.
So where does this all lead? What are the consequences? First, trade. Israel’s arms industry thrives on European contracts. Spain’s embargo cuts deep, and if other nations, Belgium, Ireland, or Norway follow, the ripple spreads. Dual-use goods, settlement produce, even aviation fuel — all are now in question.
Second, NATO. Once NATO frigates are in the picture, credibility itself is at stake. Israel can threaten activists. It cannot bluster so easily against NATO flags. If even one incident occurs — a collision, a drone malfunction, a misfired missile — NATO theoretically, will be forced to convene. Article 5 may not be invoked, but the political symbolism will be immense. For Washington, already torn by Trump’s hostility to NATO, and its putting Israel first, this is poison. America cannot defend Israel and NATO at the same time if the two are in conflict. And Trump himself, who once called NATO a “bad deal,” will find himself trapped.
Third, international law. The ICJ is already weighing genocide accusations. The ICC is already probing war crimes. The Sumud Flotilla is already putting together a file for the ICC. Attacks on ships under NATO escort would open entirely new fronts: freedom of navigation, medical neutrality, unlawful attacks in international waters. Spain, Italy, or others could launch their own legal actions. Belgium has universal jurisdiction laws. The blockade, once treated as a policing matter, would become a legal test case for the twenty-first century.
Fourth, solidarity movements. The flotilla’s real triumph is political, not logistical. It has already shown that civil society can force states to act. Fifty ships bring frigates in their wake now. That lesson will spread. Dockworkers in Antwerp and Genoa, students in Dublin, hospital unions in Oslo — all will see that direct action can shift governments.
And fifth, Israel itself. Its strength has always rested on deterrence and impunity. Strike, and the West will cover. Bomb, and Washington will veto. Starve, and Brussels will mumble. That cycle is breaking. Spain embargoes arms. Italy sails frigates. NATO flags will be fluttering beside a Libyan hospital ship and more. Israel is boxed in. Each drone circling a fishing boat, each blast in international waters, each hysterical smear of “Hamas flotillas” erodes credibility. The state that once prided itself on ruthless deterrence looks less like a power and more like a bully lashing out at shadows.
So we return again to the mental image we all have in our minds now, because it captures everything. Drones circling a hospital ship under NATO frigate protection. A nuclear power panicking at gauze and bandages. Officials screaming “Hamas!” at Spain and Italy. This is not strength. This is absolute panic.
And the lesson is unmistakable: solidarity works. Without activists already sailing, without fifty ships and three hundred people from forty-four countries, there would be no frigates. The Fasan would still be docked. The Audaz would still be in Cartagena. It is grassroots defiance that dragged states into the field. And in dragging them, it has exposed the blockade as fragile and unsustainable.
The Global Sumud Flotilla has already broken the siege — not physically, but politically, legally, morally. It has shown that solidarity can draw NATO frigates into defiance of Israel’s paranoia. It has stripped away the myth of a “lawful blockade.” And it has left Israel boxed in, panicking, trapped in contradictions of its own making.
The question is not whether every crate of flour lands in Gaza. The question is: what kind of state panics at baby milk, what kind of power fears a hospital ship, and what kind of blockade collapses the moment solidarity arrives with NATO flags snapping in the wind?
That question has already been asked. And Israel, in its paranoia and its panic, has already answered. What its next move will be, will no doubt move us into all new territory though.
For more on Israel’s drone attacks which have now begun harassing the flotilla, still in international waters and which appear to have prompted Italy and Spain to send these warships of theirs now, do check out this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch.
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