In the early hours of Wednesday morning, drones attacked a fleet of small boats bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza. The Global Sumud Flotilla, as it’s known, is the latest group attempting to break Israel’s siege on Gaza to deliver food and medical supplies.

This week on The Intercept Briefing, host Jordan Uhl speaks to Tommy Marcus, who goes by Quentin Quarantino on Instagram, about the convoy enduring attacks on international waters as volunteers remain resolved to continue their mission to deliver aid to Gaza.

“It’s pretty jarring. I’m not going to lie. I’d love to put on this really tough, confident face and say I’m totally fearless. But I’m just a normal guy, and I’d expect and hope to live past 30,” says Tommy Marcus, who is among the roughly 500 volunteers in the convoy from 45 different countries. He adds, “There is truly no way to deter us, I suppose, unless they kill us. But let’s hope that doesn’t happen.”

Diana Buttu, the former legal adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization and an analyst on issues related to Palestine and Israel, says Israel’s blockade of all entrances to the Gaza Strip is illegal and that “Israel’s attacks on these flotillas are similarly illegal.” Uhl spoke to the Palestinian human rights lawyer about Israel escalating strikes on Gaza as the U.N. met this week and more Western countries recognize the Palestinian state — a gesture she calls hollow.

“This is an American Israeli genocide,” says Buttu. Donald Trump “could have easily ended this, but he’s choosing not to.”

“Everyone joined this mission because they’re so horrified by the genocide unfolding in Gaza and also the inaction of all of our governments around the world,” says Marcus.

Listen to the full conversation of The Intercept Briefing on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Transcript

Jordan Uhl: Welcome to The Intercept Briefing. I’m Jordan Uhl. For this episode, I really wanted to talk to my friend Tommy Marcus, who is on a boat headed to Gaza. The boat, along with about 50 others, are part of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The coordinated fleet of small boats are trying to break Israel’s siege on Gaza to deliver food and medical supplies.

But as we were texting, drones attacked the convoy. He said there were explosions.

In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the group reported on social media, “Over the past few hours, more than 15 drones have hovered above the Alma boat at low altitudes, appearing roughly every 10 minutes.”

Under the hue of a red light, steering committee member Yasemin Acr took to her Instagram.

Yasemin Acr: We are currently on the Alma. And we have sighted 15-16 drones — big drones — right above our vessel. And we were alone. And now we are joining the fleet again. And we have been informed that one of the sailing boats has been attacked by a drone.

JU: Moments later, she was back with another update.

YA: We just heard another attack. Right now. We know of five vessels that have been attacked by a bomb. You can clearly hear it. And again, another bomb was released. We do not know which vessel it is at this very moment. Raise the alarm. We are in international water, carrying only humanitarian aid. We have no weapons. We pose no threat to anyone. It is Israel who is killing thousands of people. It is Israel starving a whole population.

JU: The fleet, which includes about 500 volunteers, was attacked as it was leaving Greece. Organizers say there were no serious injuries or fatalities, but at least 10 vessels were damaged.

Almost two years into Israel’s war on Gaza, more than 65,000 people have been killed, nearly 30 percent of them children. In August, famine conditions were confirmed, where more than half a million people are trapped. And as of late September, 440 people have died of starvation.

Tommy took to social media too.

Tommy Marcus: This flotilla has journalists, it has activists, it has politicians, it has all peaceful people on board who are now coming to terms with their mortality. [Voice cracks.] And the truth is, no matter how hard they threaten us, we will not stop.

JU: Despite the attacks, Tommy joins me now. Tommy is a content creator under the pseudonym Quentin Quarantino on Instagram, where he has raised over $30 million for various humanitarian causes over the last several years.

Now, just a note, we’re speaking on Wednesday, September 24.

Tommy, thank you so much for joining me.

Where are you now, and how are you holding up?

TM: Jordan, it’s a pleasure to be on. Thanks so much for inviting me. We’re currently southeast of Crete and north of Libya, I think something like that. Somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea on the way to Gaza.

JU: So you’re just surrounded by water?

TM: Yes.

JU: It is a, I am sure, scary and tumultuous journey. There are moments of fear. Last night, as you and I were talking, your boat and the other boats were subject to attacks. Could you tell us what happened and how you and your crewmates get through those moments?

TM: Sure. I mean, I think it’s important to note that while we didn’t know exactly what was going to happen, we were seeing the rhetoric that the government of Israel was starting to use about our flotilla, including and up to calling us terrorists — and insinuating, and also specifically saying, that we are somehow violent over the past 48 hours.

So leading into last night, I wouldn’t say we were expecting all of a sudden explosions to go off, but we have been diligently training every day for potential lethal force used on us and how to handle that situation, how to stay calm, and how to make sure everyone on board stays safe.

And we’re lucky that we were doing that because last night, I believe the number was 13 total explosions. One sailboat was damaged to the point that it can no longer sail, and sadly has to leave the flotilla. It’s a genuine miracle that there weren’t severe injuries. That’s the best way to describe it.

There were many opportunities for people to be hurt, and the strikes were not intended to not harm people, I would say.

JU: Right. Now I want to zero in on that terrorist label they are assigning to this flotilla. Now, what is on this boat? What is the mission here? I think the contrast between their label and your mission really highlights this sinister branding exercise by the Israeli government.

TM: Yeah. So, first aboard this boat are members of European Parliament, other politicians like the former mayor of Barcelona, members of the press, prominent activists, and notably no one who’s ever been involved in any sort of violence.

And what we’re carrying on this ship? Notably, no weapons, nothing that could incur any sort of violence or harm onto any person. What we’re carrying on this ship is food, baby formula, and medicine for the people of Gaza who are being forcibly starved by Israel. So when you think about those three types of items and then look at the rhetoric that’s being used to describe what this flotilla is, I guess it was a little funnier yesterday before they started bombing us, but, you know, it’s laughable that they are continuing to put out on social media that we are a terror boat — that we are the “Hamas Flotilla,” I think is their favorite term right now. So it’s really crazy. Even though I knew that we were going to be subject to crazy lies and hasbara, seeing it in person, seeing it being played out is shocking to say the least.

JU: Now, this isn’t the first time the flotilla has been subject to attacks. Earlier this month, a couple boats in the flotilla were attacked with incendiary devices. Now what happened and what was their response then? How did they try to spin it?

TM: So the boat that I’m sitting on currently, Familia, was the first boat that was hit by an incendiary object dropped by a drone.

There were multiple eyewitnesses. The device that was dropped has been forensically analyzed by groups such as Bellingcat. So, within 20 minutes of that first attack, there were news headlines from the Times of Israel and outlets like that — like the state-run-type propaganda machine — saying that it was from a lit cigarette.

We luckily had enough surveillance footage that you could then see, a few hours later once we went through the footage, you could see a fireball being dropped. In addition to the humanitarians who watched the drone hover over them and then drop it on them. So then the lie turned into “We shot a flare at ourselves,” I believe, is what they started to go with.

JU: Now, all of the freedom flotilla efforts have previously been intercepted. Volunteers have been detained, and in 2010 Israeli commandos raided one in international waters and

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