by David Heap, co-chair of the London Chapter of the Council of Canadians
UPDATE: The Freedom Flotilla vessel Conscience and eight other boats from the Thousand Madleens to Gaza initiative were all boarded and their passengers abducted early this morning by Israeli forces. You can send a letter to the Canadian government in support of the Freedom Flotilla here. For updates, see canadaboatgaza.org and freedomflotilla.org.
Many of us have had our attention focused recently on the Flotillas sailing against the blockade of Gaza: it is natural to be drawn to this peaceful civilian challenge to the military might of the Israeli occupation at sea. Israel’s deliberate starvation of Palestinians in Gaza as part of the genocide backed by the U.S. and allies – including Canada – makes this year’s many sailings against the blockade all the more urgent.
The Freedom Flotilla’s Madleen sailed in June, followed by Handala in July, then dozens of Global Sumud Flotilla boats in recent weeks, with kidnapped participants just being released from prison in the last few days, and now the vessels from the Thousand Madleens to Gaza initiative and the Freedom Flotilla’s Conscience are sailing towards the blockade at the time of writing.
Canadians are actively supporting and participating in these humanitarian flotillas seeking to break the blockade and end the famine. In the recently intercepted Global Sumud Flotilla, two of the volunteers on board were Canadian or Canadian-based activists (Zaheera Soomar, Rabab Mustafa). In the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) currently en route from Italy, there are six Canadians aboard Conscience: Mskwaasin Agnew, Devoney Ellis, Nimâ Machouf, Sadie Mees, Khurram Musti Khan, and Nikita Stapleton.
Not all of us, however, may be aware that the Council of Canadians has supported the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) since 2011. Shortly after the Canadian Boat to Gaza (CBG) campaign was founded in 2010, our London Chapter of the Council endorsed the campaign and the Freedom Flotilla against the blockade of Gaza. In the fall of 2011, that endorsement was in turn adopted by the Council of Canadians’ Annual General Meeting — in part because of the issue of the right to water for Palestinians in Gaza.
That same fall, in November 2011, I was among those on board the Canadian Boat to Gaza, Tahrir, when we finally managed to sail from a port in southern Türkiye towards Gaza. As with all FFC voyages before and since, we headed through international waters towards Palestinian waters off Gaza. When the Israeli navy demanded to know what our course was, my friend and shipmate Ehab Loyatef of Montreal answered: “Our course is the conscience of humanity.”
The Israeli naval commandos did not like that response. Our vessel was captured by force some 50 nautical miles from the shores of Gaza. All of us on board were abducted at sea (I was tasered), our boat and cargo were stolen, and we were forcibly brought to a country which was not our destination. We were accused of “entering Israel illegally,” imprisoned for six days and eventually deported to Canada.
My colleague Ziad Medoukh, a French professor at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, sent a message: “Your boat may not have reached the shores of Gaza, but your message of solidarity has reached all of Palestine.” This is one reason why we at the Canadian Boat to Gaza and the rest of the FFC have kept sailing for the last 15 years: our continuing actions remind Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, that while governments may forget them, the peoples of the world have not.
Civil society movements — labour unions, faith congregations, campus student movements, peace and human rights groups, among many others — refuse to forget about the Palestinians of Gaza, and we continue to challenge our governments to remember them and do better to defend their human rights.
Following our deportation, Ehab and I brought news of the ongoing FFC campaign to end the inhumane and illegal blockade of Gaza to communities across Canada. We spoke about our experiences at events from Newfoundland to B.C., in a tour co-sponsored by the Canadian Arab Federation, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Independent Jewish Voices and the Council of Canadians. Our small boat in the Eastern Mediterranean became a floating platform to speak to civil society at home.
When we sail against the blockade in Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, we also sail against our own governments and the corporations that help maintain the blockade, as well as against the media blockade, which tries to block Palestinian stories from Gaza.
Like all other coastal peoples in the world, Palestinians have the right to fish the sea off Gaza to feed their communities, without limitations and military harassment by Israeli forces, and to control their own sea and seabed territory. This includes the undersea resources like the Palestinian maritime gas fields, currently being pillaged by Israel. The major shareholder in this war crime is none other than Chevron International, a familiar corporate climate devastator of Indigenous lands and resources from the Amazon to the Arctic. The intersection of the three issues — the climate crisis, the rights of people to move freely and safely, and the occupation of Palestine- led to the Madleen Declaration, which the Council of Canadians endorsed in the summer of 2025.
The Israeli state, which stands accused of genocide, has no right to control or restrict aid to the occupied Palestinian people. The Canadian government has played along with the occupation’s weaponized control of aid by participating in well-publicized stunts like air-dropping “approved aid” on Gaza. And our national broadcaster, the CBC, has played along with the occupation’s propaganda by only recording what Israeli military censors allowed – unlike other media, which showed the devastation in Gaza.
We have no faith in purported military escorts for our vessels nor in supposedly “authorized channels” for aid. What is needed — and what all the Flotillas demand — is a people’s corridor to Gaza which is not controlled in any way by the occupying power.
Some individuals and campaigns from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition were participants in the Global Sumud Flotilla, recently attacked and imprisoned by Israeli forces and now being released. They are followed closely by more boats from the Thousand Madleen to Gaza initiative and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition vessel Conscience that has six Canadians among the volunteers on board.
While these small vessels do not have the capacity to carry all the activists who would like to sail against the blockade, there is room on board the Flotilla movement for everyone to participate, wherever we are. As “passengers on land”, we can all play a critical role of “life preservers” for those at sea, by raising our voices and demanding that our governments end their support for genocide and sanction Israel.
My colleague Ziad’s university, like his home and his city, has been reduced to rubble, and many of his students, colleagues and neighbours have been killed, maimed or imprisoned. The scale of this genocide and our government’s complicity mean that we cannot forget the Palestinians of Gaza. As our governments continue to fail, we continue to sail. Our course remains the conscience of humanity.
David Heap co-chairs the London Chapter of the Council of Canadians and was a founder of the Canadian Boat to Gaza campaign. Since sailing in 2011, he has been an active part of successive Freedom Flotilla Coalition missions, supporting participants and the Coalition’s media work. He recently spoke in Powell River, B.C., for their weekly Ceasefire gathering and the Draw the Line rally on September 20. You can send a letter to the Canadian government in support of the Freedom Flotilla here.
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