As the boat slowly glided across the calm waters, Najeh could see figures lined up along the edge of the promenade. Just hours before, high-profile flotilla members had delivered impassioned speeches calling for global solidarity against Gaza’s siege. Now, a palpable sense of energy reverberated all around. A woman in a black tee with her hair fastened atop her head stood in front of him holding a peace sign while an older man in a beige hat and keffiyah waved towards the onlookers. A voice near him could be heard through the cheering, “We are on our way. We are on our way to Gaza!”
The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), a coordinated fleet of civilian boats sailing together toward Gaza, emerged in July 2025 as one of the largest nonviolent civilian-coordinated missions to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza and bring aid to the people there. The flotilla, made up of 462 participants across 42 boats from 45 countries, left various ports—including Spain, Italy, and Tunisia—beginning in late August. While the flotilla only carried a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid, its broader objectives were to draw international attention to the shortages in food and medicine in Gaza, establish a maritime corridor through which supplies could continuously enter the enclave, and ultimately end the ongoing genocide.
Following Hamas’ takeover of Gaza in June 2007, Israeli authorities intensified movement restrictions, exerting a blockade over land, water, and air. The blockade has virtually isolated the Gaza Strip from other Palestinian territories and the rest of the world, allowing a limited number of people and goods to pass through Israeli-controlled crossings. These conditions have contributed to a state of famine in Gaza despite the availability of resources and fertile land nearby. Israel’s military escalation—in response to Hamas’ attacks on October 7th, 2023—has exacerbated these food vulnerabilities, creating a dire need for civilian aid.
Between late July and early August 2025, Najeh had stumbled across an advertisement on Instagram from Tamara Taha—a Palestinian-American activist who runs a pro-Palestine account with over 200,000 followers named @queenofpalestine—about applying for the Global Sumud Flotilla. Uncertain if he’d be able to support the effort in any way, Najeh still chose to submit an application. The next day, as he sat in his apartment in Beirut, the phone rang. Representatives of GSF’s American delegation wanted to speak to him, interested in his background as a U.S. veteran and training as a medic. Najeh, who had joined the Army National Guard years ago when he was eighteen, was incredibly excited.
The delegation was in the process of creating a veterans’ boat in hopes that the vessel would garner more media attention, and in turn, provide safety for participants on board. Several flotillas from 2008 onwards have attempted to break the naval blockade including 2011 and 2018—and while two boats from the Free Gaza Movement successfully reached Gaza in 2008, most vessels have been intercepted by Israeli forces. In 2010, the Mavi Marmara incident drew global condemnation when Israeli commandos killed ten activists and wounded dozens more after boarding a Turkish ship that was a part of the Freedom Flotilla. In anticipation of similar attacks, organizers of GSF hoped to consolidate groups of people that would make such an occurrence less likely.
“It's a little bit harder to bomb a flotilla of human rights activists if you have veterans,” Najeh told me. “You know how much Americans value their veterans.”
Once accepted, the veterans met over Zoom to receive legal training, strategize, and discuss the potential dangers and repercussions of the mission. With each meeting, their numbers dwindled as people backed out, worried about how the journey might turn awry. Najeh remained undeterred. He described how the rationale behind a flotilla, beyond breaking the siege, was to put “your body on the line.”
In describing their objectives, Najeh recalled, "We constantly said, 'We are humanitarians. This is a non-violent action, and our mission is to break the siege. We don't have to reach the shores of Gaza, but we have to at least put our bodies on the line to confront this military and bring attention to people in Palestine and people in Gaza.'"
Following their virtual meetings, the veterans received plane tickets to Barcelona where several days of conferences were held. Grouped together in shared accommodations, they would walk to Barcelona’s Port Vell, examining the boats that would soon carry them across the waters.
When they weren’t at the harbor, they were in training, gathered in the conference room housed in the building of a public service workers’ union. Najeh recalled, “First, we had introductions from everyone, and they told us about the flotilla—what we could expect. They told us about the units; the Israeli unit that would be intercepting us.” Based on past flotillas, the group anticipated being confronted by the Israeli equivalent of U.S. Navy SEALs—called Shayetet 13, which, ironically, translates to “Flotilla 13”—once they came in close proximity to Gaza.
From there, the preparation became more hands-on. In one exercise, organizers staged mock-encounters with IDF soldiers. “They would play the noises of the sea and then they would have role players act as the IDF. They would come in, and they would tell us to get down,” Najeh described. “And they would ask us things like, ‘Where's your phone?’" The entire drill was designed to unsettle participants and condition them for high-stress encounters, Najeh told me.
This was also an opportunity for all to assess the journey at hand and make a final decision about continuing. “Some people—they decided after learning about the risks, that they couldn’t continue with the mission anymore,” Najeh said. Flotilla organizers also removed others they believed would cause issues to arise later.
The last day there, the remaining participants—Najeh remembers about 200 people—walked out to the port in preparation for their send-off. “There were a ton of people there, and I’d never seen anything like [that]. I’ve been to protests and such, but this was overwhelming with the amount of support I was seeing.”
A fenced area gave access exclusively to flotilla participants, staff, and reporters. Inside, Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila read off the name of each boat and its respective passengers from a list. Najeh found himself among the first people to walk out towards the ships as people on both sides snapped pictures. They boarded roughly 20 ships, each group meeting their boat’s captain and crew. “Some of us were not enthusiastic about how small our boat was,” Najeh said, but all of them were grateful to be on a vessel nonetheless.
Although they officially set sail that afternoon, flotilla organizers had planned on stopping at a nearby port to spend the night due to an impending storm. There, the ships also received the humanitarian aid they would be transporting. Najeh and the others carried the Ohwayla’s share onboard, stowing it beneath the floorboards and setting it next to the life rafts. “We tied them down, and we wrapped them in plastic to prevent the water from ruining it.”
Still, high windstorms continued through their second departure, creating violent weather. “Some captains [told us they] had never seen something like that before,” Najeh recalled.
Once the waters steadied, day-to-day tasks kept the Ohwayla’s small group of around a dozen passengers busy. Najeh would split his medic duties with McCall Nichols, an Army Reserve captain and NICU nurse from California. Jessica Clotfelter from Illinois and Zuleyka “Mo” Rivera from Puerto Rico were both Marine Corps veterans who had worked for former president Barack Obama’s security detail. Jessica was motivated to join the flotilla because she had friends from Gaza, had witnessed the treatment of Palestinian people by Israeli forces, and felt compelled by her Christian faith to act. Mo drew parallels between Puerto Rican and Palestinian struggles against imperialism. At 24, Najeh was the youngest member on the vessel.
Although they weren’t expected to assist the crew—the captain, first mate, and mechanic—the veterans, accustomed to the teamwork of a military environment, joined in to support the ship’s routines. For Najeh, who had never been on a sailboat before, the work was entirely new, but he learned each task as it came. They unfurled the ship’s sails, hauled seawater up, learned knots for securing items, and tidied up regular messes.
Sometimes they would go fishing and cook meals from their catch using a gimbaled stove that rocked with the boat to keep the flame steady. Najeh came close to catching a tuna one day but lost the fish at the last moment. “One of my friends,” Najeh recalled, “he caught a mahi-mahi fish, and we had a great lunch and dinner from that.” They savored the fish over rice with canned vegetables and sriracha while two vegans onboard enjoyed chickpeas.
Not all of the days were eventful, however. Some days simply drifted by while the passengers rested atop the sailboat, tattooed in sunburns. Swimming was rarely permitted in order to preemptively avoid criticism that the activists were just there to have fun. Previous flotilla movements, particularly those joined by public figures like Greta Thunberg and Jacob Berger, had been criticized as publicity stunts surrounding the celebrities.
Najeh explained how those participating in the flotilla tried to emphasize the experiences of Palestinians. “In everything we were doing—even during the arrest, even during the detainment of the flotilla—people were talking about the arrest and detainment of Palestinians, not themselves. Because they’re just in prison for maybe one to five days, but Palestinians: they’ve been in prison for years and decades.”
In high school, Najeh participated in a Congressional Debate competition as a part of his speech and debate team. He had read Jeremey Hammond’s Obstacle to Peace and presented a resolution condemning Israel for the Palestinian children they imprisoned. Although the bill didn’t pass—it did, however, win first place in the competition—Najeh reckoned he had the agency to produce change when he put his mind to something.
"There were some people leaning on the pro-Israel side in that debate, and towards the end they were a bit more understanding. After that, I realized if I learn more about Palestine, how to support Palestine, and I actually support Palestine myself too, I think that will actually produce some sort of change. That's how I see actions like the flotilla. If I'm representing my university or if I'm representing my cultural group, and even the group of veterans, I can actually change people's minds."
He carried that understanding into the Army National Guard, which he joined at eighteen to support his pregnant mother and his three younger siblings. In the Guard, he helped set up COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinics for thousands of people while continuing to express his views. “Actually you might be surprised by this,” he told me, “but many people in the military have been supportive of me.” He had been in Trenton, New Jersey for his last assignment where one of his comrades reached out to express his gratitude for Najeh’s activism.
However, Najeh’s political outspokenness during his time in the army was not frictionless. “There's actually another guy who was in my first unit in Nevada with me… we did everything together, we were best friends and I'd be pretty vocal about my opinions.” Najeh explained. “At one point he threatened to report me for some of the… things I would say. Pretty recently, he said he was proud of me and he's thankful for what I'm doing.”
“I think people's minds are being changed just by me taking part in this mission,” Najeh said. “Even if they're coming from the most unlikely places.”
When the events of October 7, 2023 occurred, Najeh was still taking classes at Cornell. He began to closely follow lsrael’s military assault on Gaza while tensions on campus simultaneously escalated. Then, in late February of 2024, he witnessed footage of U.S. airman Aaron Bushnell self-immolating outside the Israeli embassy in Washington D.C.—a final act of protest against America’s support of Israel’s genocide. Najeh, a fellow veteran, was deeply moved. “I was amazed by his actions,” Najeh recalled, but “I didn’t think it was right for me to burn myself.”
Channeling his desire to act, Najeh decided to become an emergency medical technician alongside a fellow sergeant from the military. They had initially met in 10-week basic training and managed to stay in touch over the years after parting ways. After long discussions contemplating what they could do to help, Najeh and his friend founded the Aaron Bushnell Medical Corps, an organization dedicated to supporting healthcare systems in countries they feel have been devastated by imperialism.
“We’d like to expand to Sudan, Yemen, the Congo, and one day, Palestine,” Najeh said.
Their first beneficiary became a small NGO in Lebanon, Medical Rescue Corps Lebanon. Najeh and his friend raised funds for ambulance equipment and other medical training equipment in an effort to improve Lebanon’s underdeveloped emergency care system.
At the end of May 2025, Najeh began the trip to Lebanon to join the NGO. He flew to Turkey and then took a small ferry to Tripoli after a U.S. military combat medic connected him with a critical care nurse who had over 20 years of experience in the field. Although Najeh had already received medical training in the army, working inside Lebanon would give him on the ground experience while bringing him closer to Gaza. Najeh also described a more personal connection to Lebanon. As a member of the Harari ethnic group, he had extended family living there, as Lebanon is home to a sizable Harari community.
After arriving in Beirut, Najeh described his work with the NGO: “I’m a pretty new EMT, but…I got to do some things that an EMT in the U.S. would never do.” Frequent Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon led to what he described as a “dynamic environment” in which to operate. Najeh recalled Israel’s bombing of Beirut’s south suburbs on June 5th—the eve of Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday. “I didn’t get close to the explosion or I didn’t actually treat anyone from that, but I understood how the emergency medical system works in the event of attacks such as these.” Retroactively commenting on his work, he said, “I think that experience was really helpful when I applied to be one of the medics on the flotilla.”
On one of the last days of May, Najeh was sitting in his apartment when he received a text message from a friend and nursing colleague, asking to meet outside. Stepping out the building, Najeh was met with a black SUV with a Lebanese Army sticker leading a squadron of police motorcycles. His friend had trained with the Lebanese army in medical procedures before, so Najeh didn’t think anything of it. “I thought those were just his friends, and we were going to go somewhere and do something interesting. I had no idea what was going on.”
Instructed to sit in the middle, a man inside the car asked to search Najeh’s backpack. He obliged, and it was returned to him immediately after inspection with instructions to keep the bag closed. They drove up to a multi-story building shrouded by a cluster of trees on the side of the highway. After being ushered inside, Najeh and his friend were checked in. The officers took their belongings, cataloging the items and storing them away in a locker. “I was a bit concerned, because I was aware of corruption in the past,” he recalled, “but I relatively remained calm and cooperative.” Najeh had his mugshot taken, but his friend refused.
The officers ushered him towards a detention area on the second floor with several holding cells. Najeh could hear the sounds of men shouting inside the first one, unable to see past the closed door. In the cell directly to its right, he could see a single bench against the wall with two women seated at the back. “They put me in that room with the women instead of the closed room,” he said. “I’m not sure why they did that…maybe they didn’t see me as a serious threat or anything.” His friend, meanwhile, had been taken elsewhere for questioning.
Najeh would be taken to a separate room for interrogation. “They definitely did things in those rooms there,” he paused briefly. “Um, torture-wise.” Najeh went on to describe the room. “The walls were padded, there was a television on the left, and there was a chair that was screwed down with straps for the arms.” As luck would have it, the officers seated Najeh in a regular chair.
“The interrogator asked me, ‘Do you want a cigarette?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t smoke.’”
During the interrogation, Najeh was questioned about his identity, his occupation, and why he entered Lebanon. Najeh’s entry into the country via ferry raised the officer's suspicions. They also pressed him about any potential connections he had to Israel. “They would constantly ask these questions again in different ways, just to see if I was lying and to impose some sort of stress on me,” Najeh said, his voice level strikingly calm for someone describing their own interrogation. “But I answered truthfully.” He said he cooperated with the authorities entirely, afraid of deportation, and consequently, the possibility of having to stop his work.
Najeh and his friend’s interrogations would last for over twenty hours; they remained in the holding cell for a few days. “Whenever we could, we just closed our eyes and leaned forward, and they let us rest,” he said. While waiting, Najeh came to know the two women—displaced Palestinians living in the Lebanese city of Tyre. A scammer had sold them fake visas to Thailand, and they had gotten caught attempting to use them at the airport. Intense interrogations left both women in tears.
One of the women—experiencing what Najeh believes was a panic attack—began to hyperventilate and lost the ability to breathe. “We had to open her airway and put her in a position in which she could start breathing again,” he recalled. “We had to plead with the jail guards to get her an ambulance, because my colleague said she would die [otherwise].” The guards, uncertain how to respond at first, obliged, and the woman was taken to a hospital for treatment. Najeh noticed a marked shift in how the guards treated him and his friend afterwards—with what he observed as an air of respect that hadn’t been there before.
The interrogator finally felt certain about Najeh’s innocence after finding anti-Israel content on his computer and phone. “I also told them my motivations. I told them that I saw the war going on, and I wanted to do my part and help any civilian harmed by Israel’s aggressions," he said. The interrogator assured him he would be let out soon. Whereas Cornell had suspended students for protesting the genocide in Gaza, the Lebanese officials wanted to ascertain Najeh had no involvements with Israel.
They were permitted to leave the facility that night, but would have to return the next morning to fully clear any charges. Overwhelmed and exhausted, Najeh found it difficult to sleep in his apartment. Later, he would find out that the Lebanese Security Forces had been tracking his movements through different cameras around Beirut before taking him in for questioning.
The incident left Najeh shaken. “I was still processing that experience, and I was really contemplating my future,” he said. “What am I going to do in the future? How will I continue to grow, and how will I get to accomplish my goals of supporting others as a medic?”
The answer to his questions would come to him just around a week later in the form of a phone call about an application he had responded to on Instagram.
During the nights, when darkness enveloped the boat, many of the Ohwayla’s passengers slept on the deck or further below on sleeping bags and yoga mats. They had been encouraged to bring light coats, but the temperature remained agreeable. Najeh had never seen so many stars in the sky. As he learned how to tie knots and open the ship’s sails, the crew taught him how to navigate the seas without technology. “We were looking at the different constellations and the different stars that you needed to navigate with,” Najeh recalled, marveling at the beauty of that night sky.
On September 7th, the Ohwayla, along with the other vessels from Barcelona, arrived at the Port of Sidi Bou Said in Tunis for a planned pause; to reassess the boats and treat passengers. Najeh’s seasick patient was admitted to the hospital, and passengers from across the ships received free medical treatment. Najeh was surprised by the generosity of the care and by the kindness with which the Tunisians welcomed them. “If anyone was not feeling okay, they would take them to the hospital and they would make sure they would get back to their top health condition before they continued their journey to Gaza.”
While in Tunis, flotilla organizers circulated word across the boats that more medics were needed. Since the Ohwayla had thus far been supported by two medics, Najeh volunteered to join a boat with the North African delegation, the Aladdin. The Aladdin’s passengers were roughly double the Ohwayla’s. “It was a lot of work taking care of more than twenty people on that ship,” Najeh recalled.
Onboard, Dr. Mouad Marrakchi Benjaafar—a stout Moroccan with close-cropped hair—became an important mentor. Under his supervision, Najeh learned to care for passengers with complex needs, including those with congenital disabilities and others who required daily injections—work that expanded his practical medical training in ways he hadn’t anticipated.
Despite the heavier workload, the Aladdin boasted a notably more relaxed and carefree culture. Passengers took things as they came, often overlooking fire and safety training. Najeh felt increasingly concerned about the ship’s safety traveling into an unpredictable environment. While docked in Tunisia, flotilla participants witnessed vessels that had already been struck by drone-dropped explosives. Sailing closer to Gaza, the situation would turn even more precarious.
On one occasion, to better prepare his crewmates for a potential attack, Najeh attempted to simulate the sounds of a drone attack. “I got a water bottle—an empty one—and I put a lot of pressure on it,” he said. “While everyone was together discussing fire training and what to do in a fire, I popped the bottle.” The ensuing noise frightened the Aladdin’s captain, an old Tunisian man, who thought their ship had really been attacked. “That kind of made me lose a bit of confidence in him,” Najeh said, explaining how a real attack would have been much louder. He and an American woman onboard, Rebecca, kept pushing the group to treat safety with more urgency, hoping to prepare the passengers for what might lay ahead.
A few days later, the flotilla made another stop in Italy. Docked at port, ships were constantly assessed, and the Aladdin was declared unseaworthy due to its flat bottom and high chance of capsizing. Najeh was moved to the Nusantara, a ship from the South Asian delegation. Setting out for sail yet again, the Nusantara lost an engine, and upon returning to shore, its captain decided to quit the mission. Flotilla organizers reassured its passengers they’d find a mechanic along with another captain to set sail again.
The waiting was tedious. Tempers ran short, and people argued. “You really didn’t know what was going on. You didn’t know what would happen in the next hours, what the people on the top were deciding, and there was a lot of tension in these moments,” Najeh recalled. “At some points, I felt defeated, but I still had a little bit of hope in me that I’d get to help and support this mission.” He tried to relax and decided he’d stay until the last moment possible.
After roughly two weeks on standby, during which most of the passengers resided on the ship itself, the Nusantara was also deemed unseaworthy. Meanwhile, a desperate need for more medics meant Najeh was required elsewhere. Flown out to Cyprus in preparation for the Summertime Jong’s departure, Najeh was scheduled to board on the second iteration of its departure. The vessel had left for an initial wave of observation, supporting the other ships from afar by collecting information and documenting potential war crimes. The Summertime Jong was in close proximity to Gaza—only about 150 nautical miles away. While at sea, IDF patrol vessels began sweeping the waters, pursuing different flotilla boats. The flotilla vessel, carrying a Palestinian man onboard whom organizers feared would face especially harsh treatment if intercepted, set its course back to Cyprus due to the perceived threat. On shore, Najeh waited in anticipation.
Despite its safe return, the Summertime Jong would never reach Gaza.
Since the vessel had been newly purchased, flotilla organizers decided to preserve it for a later use. “When they came, and I learned,” Najeh said, “I was kind of relieved, because I was tired of waiting, and I already probably knew the [outcome].” The news lifted the weight of uncertainty he’d been carrying. For Najeh, not reaching Gaza was not an abject disappointment; it simply meant the journey would continue elsewhere. “Next one, hopefully,” he said.
Exhausted from travel and weeks at sea, he returned to Lebanon. Some GSF participants, like Najeh, would immediately return to their daily lives, but others were not so lucky.
Israeli forces arrested hundreds of flotilla activists across the span of a few days. Most of them were held at Ketziot Prison, a high-security facility in the Negev desert, and deported after several days of processing. Among them was Jessica, the Marine Corps veteran from Illinois whom Najeh had sailed with just days earlier. In an interview with ABC7 Chicago, Jessica’s mother Shelley didn’t express any surprise. “Knowing her heart, she has friends there that [are] close,” she said. “She’s not going to rest until changes are made.” Upon her return on October 8th, Jessica’s attorney would say that the detainees were zip tied, denied food, and interrogated incessantly. Other returning members would allege even worse treatment by Israeli forces, including sleep deprivation, beatings, and having dogs set upon them. If circumstances had lined up just a little differently, it would have been Najeh too, protesting his abuse along with the others.
As Najeh recovered from the journey, he returned to his work with Medical Rescue Corps Lebanon—dedicating his time to building up Lebanon’s emergency care infrastructure once again. His journey hadn’t ended with the flotilla’s culmination; he continued without falter, looking to what came next. “There will be more flotillas. Just because there’s a ceasefire doesn’t mean there’s no longer a need for flotillas or any other non-violent actions.”
And of the Summertime Jong? “They decided it’s going to be used for the next mission, inshallah,” Najeh added, using the Arabic phrase meaning “if God wills it.”