They sailed toward Gaza in the dark. The ships that made up the Global Sumud Flotilla — a grassroots humanitarian-aid mission bringing supplies like rice, lentils, baby formula, and basic medicine — had set sail from Spain, Italy, Tunisia, and Greece in late summer and had been crossing the Mediterranean for weeks. The need was dire, the odds bad: Of the dozens of humanitarian-aid ships that have tried to reach Gaza over the nearly two decades of Israel’s blockade, the Israeli military has intercepted or attacked all but a few. Some missions were undertaken by a handful of activists on a single boat . This flotilla, with 42 ships and 462 activists from over 44 countries, was one of the largest to ever make the attempt. Israeli drones had already dropped incendiary devices on two of t

See Full Page