From Valletta to Sfax: How Malta’s Wartime Memory Fuels Solidarity with Gaza-Bound Aid Flotilla

Valletta’s Grand Harbour was once the last friendly port for refugees seeking Europe’s safety; this weekend, its sister harbour in Sfax, Tunisia, echoed that role in reverse. More than 1,000 Tunisians lined the stone quays at dawn on Saturday, waving Palestinian flags and hoisting baskets of dates, to welcome two small wooden trawlers limping in from the open Mediterranean. On board: 25 tonnes of medical supplies, insulin, baby formula, and solar batteries—the first maritime relief convoy bound for Gaza since Israel’s naval blockade tightened last autumn. The scene, streamed live by Maltese NGO Mediterranea, felt like a Mediterranean family reunion stretched across 400 kilometres of sea.

For Maltese viewers watching the footage over Sunday morning pastizzi, the images carried an extra jolt of recognition. Between 1940 and 1943, Allied convoys dubbed “Operation Pedestal” braved Axis bombers to bring food and fuel to a starving Malta. Eighty-one years later, a new generation of islanders saw the script flipped: this time the rescuers sailed from Tunisia, and the besieged shore lay farther east. “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes,” said Dr Maria Camilleri, historian at the University of Malta, who has spent years mapping wartime convoy routes. “We Maltese know what it means to watch the horizon for masts that might bring bread or bombs.”

The boats, christened Al-Awda (Return) and Hurriya (Freedom), were repaired with €42,000 crowdfunded in two frenetic weeks. Half of that total came from Maltese donors responding to a late-night appeal on Facebook group “Malta for Gaza.” Among them was 28-year-old Samira Borg from Sliema, who donated €500 she had saved for summer Gozo weekends. “My nanna still tells stories of eating rationed horsemeat during the war,” Borg told Hot Malta. “When you grow up on stories of hunger, solidarity isn’t abstract; it’s visceral.”

By Monday, the boats had slipped south-east, shadowed for 30 nautical miles by a Maltese-registered research vessel chartered by activists to deter naval interception. Their planned route skirts Egyptian territorial waters before attempting to dock at Gaza’s fishing port. Success is far from guaranteed: in 2010, the Mavi Marmara convoy was raided by Israeli commandos; last month, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition lost contact with its flagship Zaytouna after a similar attempt. Yet organisers insist the symbolic value outweighs the risk. “Every kilometre sailed is a kilometre the blockade hasn’t won,” said Captain Paul Pace, a retired Maltese navy officer volunteering as navigator.

Back in Malta, the solidarity surge is reshaping local politics. Junior Foreign Minister Chris Bonett issued a cautious statement praising “humanitarian principles” while urging “strict adherence to international law.” Opposition leader Bernard Grech, sensing popular mood, called for Malta to lobby the EU for a protected maritime corridor—an echo of 1940s Allied efforts to keep Valletta supplied. Meanwhile, grassroots groups are organising a week-long “Gaza on the Docks” festival in Birgu starting Friday: open-air screenings of Tunisian solidarity footage, Palestinian dabke dance lessons, and a re-enactment of 1942 bread queues to raise funds for insulin vials.

For the 4,000-strong Palestinian-Maltese community, the flotilla offers rare hope. “My cousin hasn’t had dialysis in eight days,” said pharmacist Khalil Salah, who moved to St Julian’s in 2015. “Seeing Tunisians and Maltese unite reminds me this isn’t just a Gaza story; it’s a Mediterranean story.” Salah plans to greet the returning boats in Sfax later this month, carrying letters from Maltese schoolchildren whose grandparents once survived on convoy crates marked “Malta Convoy – Keep Dry.”

As dusk fell over the Sfax quays on Sunday, Tunisian volunteers painted the final stencilled message on Al-Awda’s bow: “From Carthage to Gaza—The Sea Remembers.” For a small archipelago whose own survival was once measured in sacks of grain and barrels of kerosene, the words feel like a promise, not a slogan.