A coalition calling itself the “Global Resilience Flotilla” announced in Johannesburg on 5 February that it will assemble more than 100 vessels and mobilise several thousand people to attempt again to deliver humanitarian supplies to Gaza at the end of March. The organisers said ships will sail from ports in Spain, Tunisia, Italy and elsewhere starting on 29 March, while a parallel convoy will move supplies overland through Egypt toward the Rafah border crossing.
The announcement was made at the Nelson Mandela Foundation in the Johannesburg suburb of Houghton, a symbolic venue chosen by campaigners to honour Nelson Mandela’s historic support for Palestinian national aspirations. Mandela’s grandson, Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela, urged the international community to prevent the Israeli navy from intercepting the flotilla, invoking both moral urgency and the family’s political heritage.
The planned operation is a scaled-up reprise of a September flotilla that assembled about 40 vessels before being intercepted by Israeli forces; more than 400 activists, including Nkosi Mandela, were detained and expelled. Organisers now say the operation will be far larger and more complex, with medical teams, environmental experts and investigators into alleged war crimes among the participants.
The operative objective — to bypass Israel’s maritime control and deliver aid to Gaza — carries acute legal and security risks. Israel says it enforces a naval blockade to prevent weapons reaching Hamas; many international jurists dispute the blockade’s scope and legality when it restricts access to lifesaving goods for civilians. Past confrontations, notably the 2010 Mavi Marmara episode, suggest an attempt to run a blockade can quickly become a diplomatic and operational flashpoint.
Beyond the maritime route, organisers intend to run a “Global Resilience Convoy” through Egypt to Rafah. That plan depends on Cairo’s acquiescence or cooperation; Egypt has historically been cautious about allowing large, politically charged aid deliveries across Rafah for fear of destabilising its Sinai border and upsetting regional diplomacy. Any attempt to move significant volumes overland is therefore contingent on complex negotiations with Egyptian authorities.
The announcement comes amid escalating diplomatic hostility between South Africa and Israel. Pretoria downgraded relations in 2019 and filed a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice after the 2023 outbreak of renewed conflict; the two countries recently expelled senior diplomats in a reciprocal spat. South Africa’s close association with elements of the flotilla will further politicise what organisers frame as a humanitarian mission.
For Israel, allowing a high-profile flotilla to reach Gaza without interception would undermine its position that the naval restrictions are necessary for security. For organisers and many Western and Global South activists, a large, peaceful flotilla aims to spotlight the humanitarian situation in Gaza and to exert moral and political pressure on governments that have not forced a change in policy. Both sides therefore have incentives to prevent the other from defining the narrative and the optics of any confrontation.
The planned operation will test the limits of maritime law, the willingness of states such as Spain, Italy, Tunisia and Egypt to host departures or crossings, and the capacity of international institutions to manage a crisis that is simultaneously humanitarian, legal and geopolitical. If the flotilla is intercepted again, it will likely provoke renewed diplomatic fallout, court cases and intensified public debate about aid access and the acceptable limits of non-state activism in high-stakes conflict zones.