By Hajer M'tırı
ABOARD THE MARIANNE BOAT
In a boat sailing in the Atlantic, I am one of nine people united around the same cause: lifting the nine-year-long, inhuman Israeli siege on Gaza.
This boat, a fishing vessel capable of carrying only so much aid, aims to punch above its weight and puncture a hole in this blockade that chokes the lifeline to 1.8 million people.
And it is headed where tragedy hit a similar boat in 2010, when Israeli commandoes preyed upon Mavi Marmara in international waters, a Turkish ship that shared the goal of breaking this vicious circle that has enveloped Gaza.
Now it is us, this team of nine, who seek to carry the torch.
We might have different nationalities, interests and backgrounds but the support for the Palestinian cause has brought us together, and infuses our ship with an air of devotion we breathe in every day.
It’s 8.30 a.m., and the smell of fresh coffee lures you into the small and cozy galley, where you’ll find the crew -- from both the night and day shifts -- gathered around the central small table filled with different dishes for breakfast prepared by our great chef Nils.
After breakfast you walk into Nils’ atelier, where the magic happens. You will find him busy as a bee, lightly moving around his grand galley in the middle of Marianne.
Nils is the one who feeds us, always making sure that each one of us is satisfied.
He simply pours his heart and soul in each meal he serves, creating dishes that make you feel you are at a Michelin starred restaurant.
As you walk around Marianne, you can’t ignore the hum of the smoothly running engines.
For that we are indebted to Kevin and Henge, our engineers, who work in alternating shifts, making sure the heart of Marianne is functioning correctly in order to keep moving and reach our destination.
If you run into a man wearing big yellow or grey earphones, it means either Kevin or Henge is heading to one of the two engine rooms at the bottom of the ship.
They always have something to do: fixing electricity, plumbing, fixing a machine, installing showers… or simply pushing a button.
Kevin Knish is from Canada. The 58-year-old is one of the survivors of the lethal Israeli attack on the Turkish Mavi Marmara ship in 2010 that left several people dead.
“You can say I’m here for the unfinished business. The job is not done. They might have succeeded once to stop us and kill 10 of my good fellow activists, but they couldn’t kill my determination. I’m here today to try it again,” Knish tells Anadolu Agency.
Wellu is our superb sailing man. His job seems to be doing everything. If you need help or information, just ask Wellu, he will come up with a solution, or at the very least, a good sailing story.
Asa is the one who is pretty much responsible of organizing each detail on Marianne.
She is the brain that plans. She will tell you in a motherly kindly tone that you need to sleep and have some rest in order to be in good shape for your shift.
And for leading Marianne and keeping us on track, Joel and Charlie cover the shifts on the bridge, monitoring the radars, radios and navigation, ensuring that we are in the right place and safe from the dangers of the ocean.
If they are not sailing, you will find them around Marianne fixing something, so as to make our journey easier.
Finally, the passengers on this leg of the journey… We are the youngest on board and the ones who bring joy on Marianne. Well, we think that anyways.
Kerstin Eklund, 21is the youngest one in the group. She is trying her best to make Nils’ work easier, and when she isn’t busy, she is mostly outside looking at the powerful beautiful sea, which makes her calm and relaxed, she says, giving her hope to see some dolphins or just come up with some new thoughts.
Kerstin is a student of Middle Eastern studies, who became aware of the “inhuman” Israeli occupation and its tremendous effects on the Palestinian people, when she was 13.
“I’m taking part on this convoy because I think we should shed light on the rights of Palestinian people to move as they wish… I could’ve done it the easy way and travel by plane there, yet I’m doing this so that people of Gaza can have the same right as me,” the young activist says.
If you see a woman with a camera hanging around her neck, that’s me, the journalist.
Marianne, with nine people from Sweden and Norway on board, departed from Gothenburg port on May 10 as part of Freedom Flotilla III expedition.
The boat is carrying solar panels and medical equipment to Gaza.
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.
Israel has maintained a tight blockade of the Gaza Strip since 2007, when Palestinian group Hamas took over control of the territory, a move which has ravaged its economy and shaved off around 50 percent off its gross domestic product.
