Turkey Is Obstructing an Effort to Break Gaza’s Siege by Sea

İsmail Beheşti was on his way to check on his ship, the Conscience, at the Port of Istanbul. It was the end of August, and he hoped the 220-foot passenger yacht would soon be loaded with aid and volunteers, sailing for Gaza to break Israel’s illegal blockade. But as he entered the port, where the ship had been moored for months, he was physically stopped.

“The security forces did not allow me to enter the port. They kicked me out by force,” recalled Beheşti. To his great surprise, he said, the security officers told him “‘No, you are on the blacklist. We will not let you go and see your ship.’”

It was the latest roadblock for Beheşti and his fellow activists from an international coalition that has been trying since April to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. They had already struggled to find countries that would lend their flags to the ships in the flotilla, as such a move could be seen as antagonistic to Israel. Once they did obtain flags, the flotilla planned to depart from Turkey, which famously supported a 2010 effort to break Israel’s siege of Gaza. But now, even though the Conscience has secured a flag and the support of U.N. rapporteurs, Turkish authorities are continually blocking its departure.

The mission is personal to Beheşti, whose father was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier during the 2010 effort, when military forces stormed aboard and opened fire. Five weeks ago, after he was told he’d been blacklisted by the port, Beheşti and other organizers launched a sit-in, using chains to effectively block the port entrance, in protest of the Turkish government’s obstructions. 

Lawyers for the flotilla have also filed an administrative lawsuit and a criminal complaint against the Port Authority, both alleging misconduct in obstructing the aid mission.

Turkish authorities at the port and Ministry of Transportation have not made a public statement about the flotilla, and did not respond to attempts by The Intercept to reach them, nor did the Turkish Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Turkey is quietly blocking the flotilla’s departure even as its leaders have been among the most vocal supporters of Palestine on the global stage. Gönül Tol, founding director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, attributed the government’s posture to President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s domestic standing. 

In light of his party’s recent defeats in Turkey, “he’s not strong electorally” and must be cautious on foreign policy, Tol said. Turkey’s weak economy is dependent on investments by Western and Gulf countries, and Erdoğan would be reluctant to risk those relationships now.

“His words don’t really match his actions.”

In speech, Erdoğan maintains public support for Gaza, Tol said, as among the Turkish public “pro-Palestine sentiment is very strong, especially among the constituency that Erdoğan wants to keep on his side.” At the same time, despite Turkey’s trade restrictions with Israel, the country still helps Azerbaijani oil get to Israel via a BP-operated pipeline through the country.

“His words don’t really match his actions,” said Tol. “He has to sound tough. … But there are limits to what he can do.”

She continued, “Punishing Netanyahu will come at a cost to Erdoğan.”

Activists hoped to sail the Conscience, a passenger yacht owned by the Mavi Marmara Freedom and Solidarity Association, to Gaza in an effort to break the siege. Photo: Courtesy of Kubilay Karadeniz

Bureaucratic Hurdles

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an alliance of human rights organizations, has periodically attempted to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Palestine since 2010. That first mission ended when Israeli forces stormed the Turkish aid vessel Mavi Marmara and opened fire, killing 9 Turks and one Turkish American. 

This year, amid Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza, the coalition planned to conduct a “Break the Siege” mission in late April. That mission was meant to include three boats carrying 5,500 tons of aid, along with nearly 1,000 participants from 52 countries, according to organizers.

But their original April departure had to be rescheduled when Guinea-Bissau, which originally flagged one of the vessels, abruptly withdrew its flag the day before departure. The flotilla has continued seeking a flag for that passenger vessel, the Akdeniz; its outreach to countries including South Africa, Ireland, and Spain did not pan out, said organizers, who are now in talks with Venezuela and Nicaragua. The flotilla’s cargo ship, the Anadolu, wound up delivering the aid to an Egyptian port in June, where it was unloaded into trucks and driven to Gaza. 

That left the Conscience, a pleasure yacht owned by the Mavi Marmara Freedom and Solidarity Association, whose president is Beheşti. Though the Conscience would carry significantly less aid than the cargo ship, organizers stress the significance of breaking the siege with passengers aboard.

Over the summer, flotilla organizers negotiated with the Turkish government for passage, but Turkish authorities repeatedly refused to allow the ship to depart, according to Hüseyin Dişli of Worldwide Lawyers Association, or WOLAS, a nonprofit organization providing legal counsel to the flotilla. This was despite multiple concessions from the flotilla, including agreeing that the Conscience would depart from Istanbul empty, only picking up passengers at European ports, and that it would not carry any Turkish nationals.

By mid-July, the flotilla seemed to have gotten over the hurdles. And on July 31, the passenger vessel was fully prepared and more than up to code, and hundreds of volunteers from multiple countries were ready to sail, so Beheşti took the final step: requesting departure papers from the Istanbul Port Authority. 

This is a simple administrative task that typically takes less than an hour, said Beheşti; hundreds of ships receive departure papers to move out of the Port of Istanbul each day. The Conscience had already received such papers weeks earlier when it needed to change locations for repairs. “We made sure, technically and procedurally,” everything is correct, he said. 

But days passed, then weeks, and the departure papers still didn’t arrive. Instead, the port requested more inspections. Beheşti agreed, only to then be informed by the Port that there would be no inspection after all. The explanation, according to Beheşti, was that “the Ministry of Transportation has given instructions on this matter, and we will not allow this ship to set sail.”

Protesters sleep at the entrance to the Port of Istanbul on their third day of a sit-in, demanding that Turkish authorities allow the Conscience to depart from Istanbul for Gaza, on Sept. 7, 2024. Photo: Courtesy of Yusuf Talip Arpacıoğlu

“Two Faces”

WOLAS lawyers made a formal request on August 20 for public documents clarifying why the port would not provide departure papers. A few days later, Beheşti was turned away from the port by security forces, according to an administrative lawsuit that the group filed against the Port Authority on September 23 for illegally obstructing the ship.

According to the suit, which The Intercept translated from Turkish, WOLAS lawyers and Beheşti have also requested that the port provide documentation of the reason for him being blacklisted, but have not received any.

The lawsuit accuses Turkey of blocking the ship “for political purposes.” It continues, “in verbal conversations between the [Mavi Marmara] association officials and the defendant administration’s officials, it was clearly stated that the ship was not allowed to sail because of … the country’s international political balances, and because they were afraid of pressure from various actors at the international level.”

Dişli, the WOLAS lawyer, said the denial of exit papers is outside the scope of Turkish law. 

“Legally, it’s a huge surprise,” he said. “Under Turkish law there is no condition the ship didn’t meet.” 

He added that Turkey is potentially violating various provisions of international law that require freedom of navigation and prohibit the obstruction of aid. That includes the January decision from the International Court of Justice which imposed on states a “negative responsibility to not hinder civil society missions to deliver humanitarian aid” as part of its provisional ruling that Israel was plausibly committing genocide in Gaza.

Beheşti, whose sit-in at the port is ongoing, has appealed to several authorities, he said, including the chair of the Port Authority and senior transportation authorities. The lack of a response has left him to draw only one conclusion.

“The Turkish government have two faces,” Beheşti said. “They have to show themselves to support Palestinians. But at the same time, they have a different agenda with Israel.”

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