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“Armed drones attacked the front of an unarmed civilian vessel twice, causing a fire and a substantial breach in the hull,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement. And while the coalition stopped short of directly blaming Israel, they demanded that “Israeli ambassadors be summoned and answer to violations of international law, including the ongoing blockade and the bombing of our civilian vessel in international waters.”

“Our Flotilla is challenging not only that blockade that has kept all of the food and water and everything out of Gaza now for almost a month and a half, on the genocide that the U.S. is complicit . The Israeli genocide of at least 55–60,000 Palestinians in Gaza,” said Ann Wright, a former U.S. Army colonel and diplomat who now works for the Freedom Flotilla. “Right here, we are in Malta dealing with a brutal attack on an innocent ship, a ship that was anchored or outside of territorial waters, waiting for us, the activists to come on board so that we could then head toward Gaza to say to the world, ‘Here are some citizens who are willing to take action where our government has failed to act.’ … While we cannot yet identify the source of the drones, there is no doubt in my mind that there’s a history of violence that has been directed toward the flotillas from the state of Israel.”

In 2010, Israel raided six Freedom Flotilla ships in the Mediterranean Sea, killing 10 people and wounding dozens.