Named in honour of internationalist anarchist Kyriakos Xymitiris, the boat ‘Kyriakos X’ is sailing with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to break Israel’s genocidal blockade that the zionist state has imposed on Gaza for decades. In a testament to Kyriakos’s life, which he dedicated to fight for justice and for the oppressed, the boat also stands in solidarity with the legitimate resistance of Palestinian people, who never stopped fighting to end the colonialist occupation of their land.
On the 8th of May, Kyriakos X left the harbour with 33 other vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla and met four other Freedom Flotilla Coalition boats at sea. The boat carries 10 people from five different countries, including Greece, Albania, the United Kingdom, Korea, France and Guadalupe.
Historically, Greece has had a prominent role in the flotilla movement since the beginning. On the 23rd of October 2008, two small fishing boats carrying roughly 44 people from the Free Gaza Movement reached Gaza, 10 were Greek citizens. They were the first boats to reach Gaza in roughly 40 years. The boats were welcomed by tens of thousands of Palestinians. The movement, which later became the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, then made a promise that they would “not stop sailing until Israel’s siege was broken”.
One of the activists involved in supporting Kyriakos X remembers well that day. As a young Palestinian living in Gaza at the time, they recall how these two boats reminded the Palestinian people that they were not alone, and that people worldwide were fighting for their liberation.
Kyriakos X is now following the promise that was made back then: they will never stop sailing until Palestine is free.
The flotilla movement is a nonviolent action that sails lawfully in international waters. Israel’s blockade of Gaza’s air, sea, and land is illegal – it does not have jurisdiction of Palestinian territorial waters. Despite this, the Israeli occupation forces began escalating attacks on flotilla’s from 2009 by ramming boats in order to sink them, abducting, tasering, and assaulting participants, unlawfully imprisoning them, and in 2010, murdering 10 civilians aboard the ‘Mavi Marmara’. Israel’s violence against the flotilla movement has continued since. Israel’s brutality and impunity was further exposed during its recent terrorist attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla fleet took place near the coast of Crete, in SAR Greek zone, 75km from Peloponnesus, and 1240 km from Palestine. The Israeli military abducted roughly 175 civilians, sexually and physically assaulted some onboard, tortured others, destroyed flotilla boats, and kidnapped Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila, where they were unlawfully detained in occupied Palestine. Adalah lawyers reported that they had signs of torture on their bodies.
The remaining GSF activists were eventually released to Greek authorities, which not only highlighted Israel’s total disregard for humanitarians or international law, but exposed how far the Greek government will go to enable and collaborate on Israel’s war crimes.
The mission of the flotilla is not symbolic. It is a nonviolent, direct, civilian action, from people to people, to confront a system of apartheid, domination, colonization, and oppression that governments worldwide have enabled, profited from, and protected for decades.
Kyriakos X calls people on land to mobilize – the fight for Palestinian liberation is everywhere where complicit companies, institutions, media, and governments feed Israel’s genocide with total impunity. Israel and their allies must be held accountable for their crimes against Palestinian people.
Kyriakos X calls for people of conscience to focus on disrupting the machinery and weapon supply chain that enables Israel’s genocide: in ports, factories, corporate offices, and government institutions. They call on people of the world to interrupt the flow of weapons to force governments to reckon with their complicity. This is a moment that demands escalation.
We sail because governments have failed to uphold their legal obligations under international law. We sail because Palestinians deserve to be free. We sail because Israel’s illegal siege and genocide of Gaza must end. We sail for humans rights and self determination. We sail because Palestinian civil society has called on the world to act.
Kyriakos X organizer
While the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Global Sumud Flotilla continues sailing, roughly 10,000 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, a majority without charge or trial. Many are tortured, sexually assaulted (including by dogs), and murdered. Hundreds of them are children. Meanwhile, Israeli settler and soldier violence across the West Bank continues to escalate – Palestinian children are being shot at in schools and homes are stolen and their crops or livestock destroyed. At the same time, Israel’s illegal “Yellow Line” is expanding in Gaza, and its genocide and bombardment of Palestinians trapped inside continues. Israel’s genocide in Lebanon continues, and its countless breaches of so-called ceasefires go ignored by world leaders. The world remains silent.
Kyriakos X participants are not heroes, they are everyday people who reject silence and complicity – they have decided to use their bodies and privileges to stand alongside the oppressed, refusing to live in a world where genocide is normalised and tolerated.
Nobody is free till Palestine is free.