Greta Thunberg and other activists said their boat, heading for Gaza, was attacked by a drone strike. However, officials from nearby Tunisia dispute that the attack caused the fire on the boat.
Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF)
That boat with Thunberg and fellow activists was one of 20 boats to set sail from Barcelona last week before docking in Tunisian waters on Sunday. They are heading to Gaza to try and deliver aid to Palestinians impacted by ongoing famine in Gaza.
People aboard the boat posted several videos showing the boat getting hit by an object. They then released more footage appearing to show a second boat being hit.
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If those really were drone attacks, they occurred in water controlled by Tunisia.
“That’s a matter for Tunisia to take up with whoever it thinks fired the drone,” Jonathan M. Gutoff, law professor and maritime/piracy law expert at Roger Williams University, told Straight Arrow News. “If Tunisia thinks somebody fired the drone, that’s a matter of Tunisian national security, really.”
Tunisian response
While that would be the case, Tunisia doesn’t believe any drones were involved.
That country’s Interior Ministry said there were no drones detected, and the claim that an attack started the fire had “no basis in truth.” The ministry said the fire likely started onboard, possibly from a cigarette.
A cigarette starting the fire is also tough to believe for some experts, since the first video does show what appears to be a fireball hitting the boat.
Flare gun?
The BBC spoke with experts from the intelligence firm Sibylline who said it’s hard to determine anything definitive from that video.
“It is entirely possible that this was a round from a flare gun hitting the vessel,” Sibylline told BBC Verify. “This would explain why it appears to fall onto the ship at a very slight angle… and the source of the light that it is emitting.”
They added that the limited damage also makes the drone allegations questionable, saying a kamikaze drone or grenade dropped from a drone would cause significantly more damage.
“To know, you’d really need to get people aboard the vessel to inspect it to see what happened,” Gutoff said. “But another possibility is just Tunisia wants no part of this and isn’t willing to interfere one way or the other. It might just want the boats to leave, the flotilla to leave its waters as soon as possible.”
Israel’s blockade
The Israelis have imposed a total blockade of Gaza from air, land and sea since March.
There have been other claims of Israeli drone attacks including one off the coast of Malta. Israel intercepted Thunberg on a separate ship off the coast of Gaza in June.
The Israeli Navy will likely intercept this fleet before it gets close to shore. The Israeli Foreign Ministry called this a publicity-seeking “selfie yacht.”
“They’re really not trying to seriously break the blockade,” Gutoff said. “Israel can detect them. People are following their position in real time. I think they’re trying to make a publicity point. I realize that there is, or at least there claims to be, real humanitarian goods aboard some or all of the vessels, but I don’t think that’s the main point of it. And I imagine, at least some people connected with it might agree that this is a sort of public relations operation to a very large extent. They’re not using any technology, either electronic or the vessel design, to try to sneak by Israeli naval patrols.”
