ATHENS, Greece
The Third Gaza Freedom Flotilla will move within hours from its current destination in Greece towards Gaza, the Palestinian Information Center's website said Monday.
The head of Miles of Smiles convoy, Dr. Issam Youssef, said that the flotilla would set sail to Gaza via Vienna despite Israeli threats to obstruct the peace convoy, the website said.
Youssef urged the international community to take responsibility and protect the flotilla against any Israeli attacks.
Tunisia's former president Dr. Mohamed al-Moncef al-Marzouki and a number of Arab and European activists have arrived in Greece to join the convoy.
Since 2007, Israel has imposed a strict naval blockade on the Gaza Strip. The 1.8 million inhabitants of the Palestinian city have been deprived of many of their most basic needs under the near decade-long blockade.
The first “Gaza Freedom Flotilla” expedition in May 2010 ended in tragedy after Israeli commandos killed nine Turkish nationals and an American of Turkish origin in a raid on the flotilla ship, Mavi Marmara. Another person died in a Turkish hospital in 2014 after being in coma for almost four years.
The second freedom flotilla set sail in 2012, but it too was turned back.
In July and August of 2014, more than 2,100 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip were killed and 11,000 injured -- mostly women and children -- during Israel's 51-day Operation Protective Edge.
