Malta watches as Greek aid ships sail toward Gaza, reviving island’s flotilla ghosts

Two Greek-flagged vessels slipped out of Piraeus on Tuesday morning, their decks stacked high with medical crates and their manifests heavy with political symbolism. Destination: Gaza, via a Mediterranean sea-lane that Maltese fishermen know as “the back door to the Levant.” By nightfall the captains had already pinged Malta’s Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre requesting onward clearance, reminding everyone on this rocky archipelago that the hottest humanitarian corridor in the world still runs past our kitchen windows.

The flotilla—organised by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition and endorsed by Greek trade unions—carries 5.5 tonnes of antibiotics, solar-powered desalination units and 200 pallets of baby formula. organisers say the cargo was crowd-funded in ten days, with €38,000 of the €310,000 total traced to Maltese IBANs. “We expected solidarity from Scandinavia, not from a dot in the middle of the sea,” laughed Eleni Vasilaki, an Athens-based coordinator, when contacted by Hot Malta. Yet the Maltese donations keep climbing, propelled by TikTok videos filmed outside Mosta church and a late-night radio appeal by DJ Moira on Campus FM.

For Malta, the flotilla revives memories of 2010, when nine activists died after Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara. Three Maltese citizens—journalist Lara Sant, nurse Daniel Tabone and engineer Paul Bajada—were on board the accompanying Challenger I. Sant’s dispatches, filed over a crackling satellite phone to the now-defunct MaltaToday print edition, still circulate on Facebook whenever Gaza dominates the news cycle. “Every time a boat leaves Greece we relive those nights in May,” Sant told this reporter from her Sliema townhouse, where the original bullet-scarred press badge hangs framed beside a photo of her late father, a dockyard riveter. “Malta looks small on the map, but our knots in the rope of memory are tight.”

This time the risks are different. Israel has warned that vessels breaching the 20-nautical-mile exclusion zone will be seized, while Egypt’s parallel closure of the Rafah crossing complicates any Plan B. Greek authorities insist the ships—S/V Arion and M/V Hope—are civilian yachts retrofitted with humanitarian exemption papers, but foreign-ministry sources in Valletta confirm that Malta has offered “non-objection” transit rights should either vessel need refuge. “We won’t block a boat carrying life-saving medicine,” one official said, requesting anonymity because parliament has not yet debated the issue. The caveat: any docking would trigger a 48-hour customs inspection, time the flotilla can ill afford.

Local impact is already visible. On Monday, 40 volunteers sorted donated antibiotics at the Marsa Open Centre, normally a hub for migrant integration. Coordinator Ahmed Nasser, a Palestinian-Maltese chef who arrived by raft in 2008, says turnout doubled after Imam Mohammed Elsadi dedicated Friday’s sermon at the Mariam Al-Batool mosque to “the dignity of sea routes.” Meanwhile, fishermen in Marsaxlokk have revived the old custom of lighting oil lamps on boat prows—a good-luck charm once used during the 1980s Libyan blockade—sending flickers of amber across the harbour in quiet solidarity.

Not everyone is comfortable. The Malta-Israel Chamber of Commerce warned that “unilateral flotillas risk destabilising commercial maritime corridors,” while Nationalist MEP candidate Peter Agius called for an EU-flagged humanitarian maritime corridor instead. Yet even critics concede the flotilla has reopened a national conversation about Malta’s own neutrality clause, inserted into the constitution in 1987 after a decade of Cold-War posturing. “If we can host Russian and Nato ships in Grand Harbour, surely we can host a Greek boat full of bandages,” Labour MP Randolph Debattista posted on X, garnering 3,400 likes in two hours.

Back in Piraeus, the Arion’s captain radioed that they expect to pass south of Gozo around dawn on Friday, weather permitting. Church bells at Ta’ Pinu will toll at 06:00, an initiative by Gozitan youth group Għanja Gaza that has already recruited 70 volunteers to wave from the cliffs. Whether the ships reach their destination or are diverted to Cyprus, one thing is certain: for a week at least, Malta’s horizon will once again be stitched to Gaza’s by a thin, defiant line of salt and conscience.