The twelve people aboard the Freedom Flotilla, a humanitarian ship that tried to cross the blockade in Gaza, were arrested by Israel on Monday, June 9. Among them, six French, including one who accepted their dismissal in France, as announced by Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot.
• MEP RIMA HASSAN
MEP, political activist … Rima Hassan is the decorative figure of this team, along with the environmental activist Greta Thunberg. The Franco-Palestian and rebel deputy has documented the entire trip to highlight the problems and the humanitarian crisis. For months, she has denounced a “genocide” in progress in the Gazaouis, which Israel firmly demented.
• Doctor Baptiste André
The Marseillais Baptiste André is the doctor aboard the humanitarian ship, specialist in internal medicine at the Timone hospital. Before embarking, he had expressed his motivations to France 3 Provence. He said he said to occupy the mission of “Doctor on board to take care of the crew.”
“I try to make sure to handle anxiety” during the mission, he shared.
• Amateur pascal maurinery sailor
Pascal Maurieras is, with Baptiste André, the second Marseillais that has left Sicily in the direction of Gaza. He is “Computer Engineer by profession” and amateur sailor, according to the City Council, quoted by ACT Marseille.
As explained by local media, he was responsible for guaranteeing part of the maneuvers in the sea. He is also a former CGT unionist, and had already participated in a similar humanitarian mission, which had already been interrupted by Israel in 2018.
• Environmental activist Reva Seifert-Viard
Like Greta Thunberg, Reva Seifert-Viard is an environmental activist also affected by the Palestinian cause. As Huffpost pointed out, he stood out at the beginning of 2024 spending 39 days perched on a tree to protest against the A69 site.
With Act Landes, he detailed his positions. “I do not support this inhumanity of the order of infamous and horror.”
• Yanis Mhamdi, explosion journalist
Two journalists are aboard the boat to document the trip and the situation in Gaza, if they could have achieved their goal. One of them is Yanis Mhamdi, a journalist of the online media explosion. He also worked for other media such as France 2024. He is the author of a documentary published in 2024: Netanyahu, portrait of a war criminal.
• Omar Faiad, Jazeera journalist
Another journalist participated in the humanitarian mission with Yanis Mhamdi, this is Omar Faiad, reporter of the Al Jazeera channel, a medium in Arabic. According to the reporters of the NGO, Sans Frontières, who “condemned the arrest of the two French journalists by the Israeli army,” he left with the aim of “documenting this peaceful humanitarian initiative.”
Source: BFM TV
