PSA PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 14 MAY 2026
TÜRKIYE – Six members of the Global Sumud South Africa Delegation is part of the Global Sumud Flotilla as it regroups in Türkiye with more than 50 boats from multiple ports preparing to push toward Gaza in what has become the largest civilian maritime mission in history. The delegation comprises Qutb Hendricks, Yusuf Rahman, Mogamed Faeek Afriedien, Ambassador Faizel Moosa, Hajar Ahjum, Kagiso Mathee, and Ebrahim Peters.
Their presence on the water this week is not coincidental. On 15 May, the world marks 78 years of the Nakba, the Arabic word for ‘catastrophe’, which recalls the mass dispossession of Palestinians that began in 1948 when 15,000 Palestinians were massacred and more than 750,000 were ethnically cleansed from their homes. Some of those 1948 refugees were exiled to Gaza. Their status from their original home did not protect them, as they have remained besieged by the Zionist entity, more recently under a 19-year blockade. Ninety per cent of Gaza’s 1.9 million are displaced.
The mission has already faced violent resistance from Israel . On 30 April, Israeli commandos intercepted 22 boats carrying more than 170 activists in international waters, hundreds of miles from Gaza’s coast. Thirty civilians on board were injured, and four have since come forward to report incidents of sexual assault. Two flotilla leaders were abducted to Israel and subjected to reported torture before international pressure secured their release.
Despite the interception, the remaining fleet regrouped in Türkiye’s port of Marmaris, with participants describing the mission as an act of civil disobedience against global legal paralysis. The detention of flotilla activists cannot be separated from a broader pattern. More than 10,000 Palestinian hostages remain in Israeli jails, among them more than 400 children held without charge. Under constantly changing Israeli law, the death penalty now looms over detainees who in many cases have no case numbers and no access to lawyers, a situation the international community has largely failed to act on.
For South Africa, participation in this mission carries particular weight. South Africa has been at the ICJ since December 2023, making the legal case that what is happening in Gaza constitutes genocide. That legal fight continues; the South African Global Sumud delegation chose not to wait for courts alone.
According to GS South Africa Steering Committee member “As the world marks 78 years of an ongoing genocide that has never stopped, we are proud of the six South Africans who are yet again showing the world that solidarity is something you do, not just something you say.”
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