Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Swedish Boat Embarks on Trip To Break Gaza Embargo

A trawler left Sweden on its way to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip 5,000 nautical miles away.

The Marianne of Gothenburg departed on Sunday evening and is the first ship in the Freedom Flotilla III to leave for Gaza, according to the website of the Ship to Gaza Sweden campaign. The boat, which was purchased jointly by the Ship to Gaza Sweden and Ship to Gaza Norway, is carrying solar panels and medical equipment, according to Ship to Gaza Sweden, along with five crew members and eight passengers.

The Ship to Gaza organization is calling for an immediate end to the naval blockade of Gaza; opening of the Gaza Port; and secure passage for Palestinians between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden officially recognized the state of Palestine last October.

Among the passengers are Israeli-born Swedish citizen Dror Feiler, a musician and spokesman of Ship to Gaza; Dr. Henry Ascher, a professor of public health and pediatrician; Lennart Berggren, a filmmaker; Maria Svensson, pro tem spokeswoman of the Feministiskt initiative; and Mikael Karlsson, chairman of Ship to Gaza Sweden.

The boat is named after Marianne Skoog, a veteran member of the Swedish Palestine Solidarity movement, who died in May 2014.

The Freedom Flotilla’s first attempt to break the blockade ended in the deaths of nine Turkish activists after Israeli Navy commandos on May 31, 2010 boarded the Mavi Marmara, which claimed to be carrying humanitarian aid, after warning the ship not to sail into waters near the Gaza Strip in circumvention of Israel’s naval blockade of the coastal strip. A second attempt was turned back in October 2012.

The Marianne will stop at ports in Helsingborg, Malmo and Copenhagen, as well as others to be announced later, according to the Ship to Gaza Sweden website.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.