Starting on October 1, Israel abducted over 400 unarmed international activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla—the latest in an increasingly long line of attempts by pro-Palestine organizers to defy Israel’s siege and starvation of Gaza by delivering food, baby formula, crutches, and other medical supplies and essential needs. Israel’s raid on the over-40-vessel-strong flotilla lasted over 30 hours. The flotilla volunteers were then held in Israel’s Ketziot prison in the Negev desert for days, where they were humiliated and brutalized by Israeli authorities—and where Palestinian prisoners are regularly abused at the hands of the same forces.

While Israel was carrying out its raid, nine more boats were already on their way. Huwaida Arraf—the cofounder of the Free Gaza Movement, which preceded the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) and successfully transported people in and out of Gaza with boats in 2008—was sailing toward Gaza on the Conscience. On board were 92 civilians, largely medics and journalists who intended to support their colleagues in Gaza who have explicitly been targeted by Israel’s genocide.

Their boat joined forces with the eight vessels of the grassroots Thousand Madleens organization, with 145 citizens of 30 countries, including the United States, hoping to reach Gaza by October 10. But on early Wednesday morning, according to flotilla spokespeople, Israel descended onto the fleet with a helicopter and abducted everybody on board, along with $110,000 worth of aid.

Before we lost contact, I had the opportunity to speak to Arraf, who is now believed to be in Israeli detention in Ashdod, about the purpose of the mission.

“The world has allowed Israel to do this, to impose the most drastic, comprehensive media blackout, I think, in modern history, and to not only kill journalists, but to actually target journalists and their families,” Arraf said. To say that governments are not doing anything is actually inaccurate, because “they are actually enabling this,” she continued.

At the same time, Arraf said, this is a massive “failure of the journalism profession as a whole,” especially that of legacy media, which she said disappointingly did not have any representatives on board. More than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since the beginning of the genocide, along with at least 1,400 medical personnel in “a systematic campaign to destroy the Gaza Strip’s health and relief infrastructure,” according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. The medics and journalists on board were taking it upon themselves to support “their exhausted, absolutely exhausted and traumatized colleagues” who remain in Gaza, Arraf said.

Last May, the Conscience was damaged by an Israeli drone strike off the coast of Malta. The vessel was then towed to Istanbul where it was repaired after Malta refused to allow it to dock in their ports. “The reaction to this attack by the European Union, was, I want to say shocking, but it’s almost silly to say shocking when you see their response to genocide,” Arraf told The Nation.

After the attack on the Conscience, the FFC sent off the Madleen and Handala boats toward Gaza. While ships like the Madleen had only 12 volunteers on board, who were then later abducted by Israel in international waters, those smaller missions awakened the imagination and hope of the world, Arraf said. About 26,000 people signed up to join the Global Sumud Flotilla, a coalition separate from the FFC but led by many of the same activists, like Yasemin Acar and Thiago Ávila. Arraf said that the FFC not only provides support for these other organizations but also encourages civil society and institutions, like Oxfam and Norwegian People’s Aid, to step up and create their own initiatives to break the siege, as long as world governments fail to do so.

“We’re reading about some of the horrific things that have happened to Global Sumud Flotilla activists, largely in the forms of abuse and humiliation. And we know that Palestinians endure so much, so much worse,” said Arraf. “We remain determined.”