Fifteen Australians are attempting to break Israel’s 19-year land and sea blockade of Gaza in a civilian-led mission the federal government has implored them not to carry out.
“We understand people want to respond to the humanitarian situation in Gaza but we urge Australians not to join others seeking to break the Israeli naval blockade as they will be putting themselves and others at risk of injury, death, arrest or deportation,” said a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
About 40 vessels left Barcelona, Spain, last week. Australians including Northern Rivers documentary filmmaker Juliet Lamont, Rising Tide organiser Zack Schofield and University of Sydney law student Ethan Floyd are set to join the convoy from a port in eastern Sicily on Sunday.
It is expected the Global Sumud Flotilla will be bolstered by boats from Greece and Turkey in the coming days, taking the flotilla to about 100 vessels and 1000 participants.
“I’m prepared to suffer and sacrifice a bit of my own physical comfort to hopefully put pressure on governments to end the genocide and stop arming Israel,” says Lamont. Her two daughters, 27-year-old Luca and 25-year-old Isla, are also sailing.
The 55-year-old is “terrified” but said: “What happened to me in prison just pales [in comparison] to what happens to innocent Palestinians every day.”
Foreign Minister Penny Wong asked DFAT officials to meet with and brief a group of participants ahead of their departure. They strongly encouraged them not to follow through with the mission.
“While our officials stand ready to provide consular assistance to any affected Australians, our ability to provide consular assistance in Israel and Palestine is limited at this time,” a DFAT spokesperson told this masthead. “We encourage those wishing to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza to do so through established channels.”
Israel has intercepted all Gaza-bound flotillas since 2010, so there is a sense of inevitability among participants of capture. In addition to security training, they have undergone detention and non-violence training.
Although the participants and the aid they are transporting, which includes prosthetic limbs for children, are unlikely to reach their intended destination, Schofield says the movement is not futile.
“Every time Israel is forced to capture and abuse humanitarian aid workers to prevent food from getting to Gaza’s shores, people see once again the brutality that state is willing to employ just to make Palestinians starve,” says the 26-year-old Sydney-based activist.
Lamont, Schofield and Floyd believe a significant part of their mission is drawing attention back to the atrocities committed in Gaza – the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry labelled it genocide in September – which they say has waned since the United States and Israel struck Iran in February.
There is also hope that it will provide tangible relief to Palestinians in Gaza in some form; although most boats were intercepted in October, there were reports that one vessel had made it to within 42.5 nautical miles (about 78km) of Gaza.
“We have to continue showing up for these actions,” says Floyd, 22. “I’m increasingly grappling with this disconnect between what I can see and what I’m being told to accept. It’s just not enough to only speak out. You feel a growing pull to do something about it, to do something large, public, visible, physical.”
Since October 2023, Australia has committed more than $130 million in humanitarian assistance to help civilians in Gaza and Lebanon.
Food, water and medical supplies are delivered through partners including UNICEF and the Red Cross. About 2600 civilians seeking aid in the Gaza Strip were killed between May and October 2025.
The number of Australians, and vessels, participating in this flotilla is almost double that of October, but some participants, including Clementine Ford and Jayden Kitchener-Waters, did drop out.
Non-essential staff at many Australian embassies across the Middle East, including Israel, have been directed to leave due to the escalating conflict in the region. Israel, Palestine and most of the Middle East are currently listed as “do not travel” areas by DFAT, and Australia’s embassy in Tel Aviv is closed due to heightened security concerns.
This means the level of assistance DFAT provided to flotilla participants in 2025, which included but was not limited to in-person welfare checks and direct representations to Israeli authorities regarding their humane treatment and access to essential services, cannot be matched.
Israel’s foreign affairs ministry did not reply when asked by this masthead how it plans to respond to the flotilla.
In October it said the Global Sumud Flotilla was “organised by Hamas”, which the movement denied, and it called on the flotilla to dock at Ashkelon Marina and unload the aid supplies there to be “transferred promptly in a co-ordinated manner to the Gaza Strip”.
The blockade has been in place since Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip in 2007. The Gaza war started after Hamas-led fighters killed 1200 people and took 251 hostages in the October 7, 2023 attacks, according to Israeli tallies.
Since then, Israel’s offensive on the enclave has killed more than 72,000, according to Palestinian health officials.
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Bronte Gossling is a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, WAtoday and Brisbane Times.Connect via email.