A charity chaired by the Libyan leader’s reformist son Saif Al-Islam Qaddafi is organizing the trip and said the vessel would carry some 2,000 tons of food and medicine and complied with international rules.
Nine pro-Palestinian activists died in May when Israeli marines stormed a Turkish aid ship heading a Gaza-bound convoy, prompting world outcry, a crisis in Israeli-Turkish relations and a condemnation from the United Nations Security Council.
“We are doing what we can, if everybody steps back and says the Israelis will not allow it, nothing will happen and the people of Gaza will starve,” said Youssef Sawani, executive director of the Qaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, which is organizing the aid trip.
“We hope everything will go smoothly,” he told reporters on Friday on board the Amalthea vessel, re-named Hope for the trip.
Ten supporters of the charity will be on board, as well as 12 crew, Sawani said in the southeastern Greek port of Lavrio. The activists are Libyan apart from one Nigerian and a Moroccan. The crew include Cubans, Haitians, Syrians and Indians.
“We will try to explain to the others that we are just helping people, we have nothing in the ship except rice, oil, tomatoes and flour, that’s all we have, we don’t have weapons,” said Fabdalraof Jaziri, a Libyan engineer who will take part in the trip.
Israel has said its blockade was necessary to stop arms and materials it fears could be used for military purposes from reaching Gaza’s Hamas rulers.
In the wake of the Israeli raid and the international outrage it caused, it has announced steps to ease the blockade of the enclave and set up an inquiry into the incident.
Sawani said he hoped to sail on Friday or early Saturday and the trip would take 70 to 80 hours.
