I am writing to you with urgency and outrage regarding the recent interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla by Israeli naval forces in international waters. This flotilla, carrying humanitarian aid and international activists — including American civilians and U.S. military veterans — was violently seized, and its passengers detained.
This act is not only unlawful under international maritime law, it is a grave violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime. Civilians on a humanitarian mission were attacked, silenced, and deprived of their liberty for attempting to deliver food, medicine, and supplies to a besieged civilian population in Gaza.
Israel’s blockade, which deliberately prevents aid from reaching starving men, women, and children in Gaza, is itself a war crime: the intentional starvation of a civilian population. To then attack and detain American citizens — including U.S. veterans — for trying to bring relief to those civilians is unconscionable.
I demand that you:
1. Publicly condemn Israel’s unlawful interception of a humanitarian flotilla in international waters.
2. Demand the immediate release and safe return of all American citizens, including our veterans, currently detained.
3. Ensure that the humanitarian mission of the flotilla is fulfilled, and that the desperately needed aid it carries reaches the people of Gaza without further obstruction.
4. Support an international investigation into Israel’s ongoing use of starvation as a weapon of war and its repeated violations of international law.
5. Cease all U.S. military aid to Israel immediately, until it ends its unlawful blockade, frees detained Americans, and complies with international humanitarian law.
The United States must stand on the side of international law, humanitarian principles, and the protection of our own citizens. Allowing our veterans and civilians to be detained by a foreign military for delivering food and medicine — and failing to respond — would signal both complicity and moral failure.
History will remember where our leaders stood in moments like this. I urge you to act decisively, not only for the safety of Americans detained abroad, but also for the starving civilians of Gaza and the preservation of basic human decency.
First sent on October 3 by Elizabeth
