By Elizabeth Murray, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, October 8, 2026
A NEW FREEDOM FLOTILLA, led by the aptly named Tenacity, set sail from Bristol, UK in September and headed for Gaza in yet another attempt to break Israel’s siege and blockade of Gaza.
A significant percentage of the ship’s passengers and crew—whose countries of origin include Denmark, Norway, Spain, Ireland, France, the United Kingdom, the United States and Palestine (currently residing in Sweden)—have been kidnapped, detained and tortured by Israeli soldiers on previous Gaza-bound solidarity missions. Nevertheless, they are determined to challenge Gaza’s isolation.
Captain Tomás Alberto Moraté Serna, who hails from Spain, is the captain of the Tenacity. He was kidnapped, brutalized, tortured and deported by Israel in April 2026. He explained that he is back for the same reasons he joined the Gaza mission in the first place: “I am not happy with what I see in the world, and I need to do my part” to transform it.
Serna is primarily an environmental activist, but he is keenly aware that environmental and climate concerns overlap with ending wars. Knowing that Israel is daily murdering Palestinian men, women and children amid governments’ silence and/or complicity impels him to sail with the Freedom Flotilla once again. The flotilla’s slogan is “When governments fail, we sail.”
Colm Byrne, First Mate aboard the Tenacity, experienced violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers on a previous mission. He sails again “because there’s still kids being slaughtered and degraded,” he said. “And there’s no sign of it ending. This should not be happening in 2026.” Asked what he would say to the Palestinian people, Byrne, who hails from Ireland, stated: “I’d apologize for the Western world’s lack of response. I would let them know that the majority of the people of the world are on their side. We [the Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla Coalition] represent the people.”
Another crew member who experienced Israel’s violent seizure of Gaza-bound boats in April 2026 said he has received several written death threats from Israel in the mail warning him that his life will be in danger if he is again apprehended by Israel on the high seas. For him, sailing again is an act of resistance against Israel’s crimes against humanity.
MY ROAD TO TENACITY
For me personally, sitting at home during a genocide is not an option.
In the 1980s I was stationed in Amman, Jordan for two years, working as an editor for the U.S. government’s media translation office—then known as the Foreign Broadcast Information Service and later the Open Source Center.
As part of my duties, I would travel periodically to the U.S. Consulate in East Jerusalem (a diplomatic outpost which no longer exists) to collect the local Arabic language newspapers for translation. The trip usually entailed spending one or two nights in East Jerusalem.
It was during the time of the first Intifada, and most Palestinian businesses shuttered their doors at 1 p.m. in a nonviolent protest against the Israeli occupation. An eerie silence often pervaded those afternoons, when the streets were deserted.
In the early evenings I would often see armed Israeli soldiers chasing Palestinian children down the ancient cobblestone streets as clouds of tear gas hung in the air. I saw Israeli soldiers yanking a shopkeeper from behind his store counter and hauling him away in an armored vehicle. An Israeli policeman riding a very large horse once drew dangerously close to me as I walked in the park; he menaced other pedestrians in a similar fashion; and from my hotel window one morning, I awoke to the sight of a blackened Palestinian car in flames. (Israeli and Palestinian vehicles can be identified by their color-coded license plates.)
I visited several Palestinian families in their homes and learned about the Israeli poisoning of local water wells, the denial of housing permits and other cruelties designed to make life unbearable for Palestinians and encourage them to leave.
From that time, Palestine began to occupy a place in my heart.
My time among the Palestinians helped me to become more aware of the pro-Israel biases in the U.S. media and the militaristic mindset that prevailed among the government and think tank communities in Washington, DC. On one occasion I witnessed an entire room of Middle East experts giggling at the reference to Israel’s need to occasionally “mow the lawn in Gaza” (a euphemism for killing civilians). I remember being told by an Iraqi-American who attended war games at the U.S. Army College ahead of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003 that none of the people in the room gave thought to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who would be killed in these scenarios.
Sailing with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition boats has given me a platform to help educate the public on our mission as well as on measures that everyone can take on a daily basis to help bring about a change in Israel’s behavior, such as participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS).
THE REAL PURPOSE OF THE FLOTILLA
The Tenacity (also known by her previous moniker Kate) is a 56-year-old fishing vessel. It has visited ports in Kinsale (Ireland); Camaret-sur-Mer and Brest (France); and Castro Urdiales, Bilbao, Santander and Vigo (Spain). It plans to winter in a Mediterranean harbor and continue on to the final leg toward Gaza in spring 2027, joined by one or two other boats en route.
While Tenacity bears a modest amount of aid for the people of Gaza, its mission is not primarily humanitarian; it is to break Israel’s siege on Gaza; to demonstrate that peoples of the world stand united with their Palestinian brothers and sisters who endure unimaginable suffering in their resistance to Israel’s oppressive and criminal practices; to stand against Israel’s genocide and wanton detention and torture of innocents; and to apply political pressure on world governments to cease their active complicity with Israel’s brazenly criminal conduct in Gaza and the West Bank.
We attempt to educate people at each port on our route. Activists have engaged intensively with local peace groups, trade union associations and other solidarity organizations, as well as the public. Local communities have hosted press conferences, colloquia, public forums, street actions and other activities in support of the boat’s mission to Gaza, providing a platform for FFC activists to publicize their efforts.
Grassroots organizations in each port city generously donate to Tenacity’s mission in any number of ways, offering gifts to the boat of local food, homemade treats, showers and homestays for crew/passengers, logistical support, as well as clothing and food for the children of Gaza.
I have found it remarkable how many parents have conscientiously brought along their young children for boat tours. Beyond the excitement of boarding a boat and the fun of sitting in the captain’s chair, they want their children to be aware of the violence Israel is inflicting on innocent children just like them.
The Tenacity activists rotate the many chores aboard, most important of which is the 24-hour watch while at sea and in port to report any surveillance activity on the boat or sightings of hostile drones or sea vessels. We also guard against the potential sabotage of the boat’s engine or propeller. Several flotilla boats in previous years were clandestinely disabled by saboteurs, so the risks are real.
Perhaps the most important aspect of this mission is to draw international attention to the plight of the Palestinians, which seems to have disappeared from mainstream news headlines despite the accelerated and extremely violent ethnic cleansing project under way in both the West Bank and Gaza.
Activists aboard the Tenacity understand that change cannot be accomplished overnight—but that persistent political pressure on international governments is bound to yield results, especially when coupled with economic pressure through the BDS movement. Israel’s increasingly violent reaction to a boatful of unarmed civilians only underscores its desperation and further diminishes what remains of any favorable public opinion toward Israel in the international community, which has already shifted dramatically against it.
The activists and those in solidarity with them form a family of nonviolent resisters who draw strength from one another and who revel in their growing community of nonviolent resistance to genocidal oppression. As one crew member told me: “I never feel more alive than when I am on these missions.”
Elizabeth Murray served as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S. government, where she specialized in Middle Eastern political and media analysis. She is a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
