For the second time in three months, drones carrying explosives have attacked boats in the Gaza flotillas. I was in Malta when the “Conscience” ship was attacked by drones carrying explosives and I am now in Tunis where the “Familia” ship was attacked.
Several hours ago in the evening of September 8, an explosive dropped from a drone hit “Familia, ”the lead ship of the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) anchored in national Tunisian waters off Port causing a fire on the bow of the ship. There were 5 people onboard as the crew and security team. No one was injured.
Five months previously, on May 1, 2025, multiple drones dropped explosives on the “Conscience” flotilla ship in international waters off Malta causing such extensive damage to the bow of the ship that it became inoperative. Several crew members were injured by flying debris.
The Global Sumud Flotilla had arrived in Tunis on September 7 from Barcelona with 17 boats and another five on the way.
In Tunis, the GSF would be joined by almost twenty boats and an estimated 175 participants and crew. Other boats in the Global Sumud flotilla will join from Italy and Greece.
The investigation of the criminal attack on a flotilla ship in the waters of Tunisia will begin today to include finding out if an Israeli aircraft was in the area of Tunis either flying directly from Israel or from Sigonella Air Base, Sicily, a joint Italian-US airbase where several Israeli electronic warfare planes have been stationed in the past week.
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Ann Wright is a retired US Army Colonel and former US diplomat who resigned in 2003 in opposition to the US war on Iraq. She is a member of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition steering committee. She is the co-author of “Dissent: Voices of Conscience.”