deadly voyage actors

Full Cast of Deadly Voyage Actors/Actresses

Deadly Voyage cast list, listed alphabetically with photos when available. This list of Deadly Voyage actors includes any Deadly Voyage actresses and all other actors from the film. You can view additional information about each Deadly Voyage actor on this list, such as when and where they were born. To find out more about a particular actor or actress , click on their name and you'll be taken to page with even more details about their acting career. The cast members of Deadly Voyage have been in many other movies, so use this list as a starting point to find actors or actresses that you may not be familiar with.

List includes Joss Ackland, David Suchet and more.

If you want to answer the questions, "Who starred in the movie Deadly Voyage?" and "What is the full cast list of Deadly Voyage?" then this page has got you covered.

Chiwetel Ejiofor

Joss Ackland

Sean Pertwee

David Suchet

Andrew Divoff

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Michael Byrne

Jean-Claude La Marre

Maxine burth.

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Deadly Voyage

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Stuart Urban

Kingsley Ofusu

David Suchet

Joss Ackland

Jean-Claude La Marre

Sean Pertwee

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Produced by, deadly voyage (1996), directed by john mackenzie.

• AllMovie Rating 6
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Deadly Voyage

Film details, brief synopsis, cast & crew, john mackenzie, luka javanovic, david dontoh, wakefield ackuaku, augustus kobina kudmson, brew riverson, technical specs.

Based on the terrifying true story of one ship and the nine stowaways hiding beneath its deck, who dream of finding wealth and happiness in America. But their existence threatens the career of the ship's captain, and when a lack of water forces them out of hiding, they become a problem to the overly ambitious officer; his solution is a very final, deadly one. One by one, the stowaways are to be taken from the ship's hold and slaughtered. The plan of the ship's officers cold-bloodedly proceeds, until one of the stowaways manages to escape. Now, somewhere in the deep bowels of the ship, he runs and hides as armed crew members hunt him down. As long as he is alive, the captain and his crew must take the risk that their plot will be uncovered. They must make him the final victim if they are to put an end to the Deadly Voyage.

Michael Byrne

Tomas lukes, carl antolin, levani ilia volokh, oscar provencal, alex kodela, stephanie cornicard, juliet asante, chiwetel ejiofor, henry nartey, ravil isyanov, sean pertwee, roman varshavsky, adewale akinnuoye-agbaje, andrew divoff, omanza eugene shaw, joss ackland, david suchet, george meyer, maxine burth, jean-claude lamarre, fred abuaku-asare, bradley adams, davies adjei, emmanuel adjetley, dan adjokathcer, adam aldridge, brian aldridge, john allotey, christine allsop, francis annan jr., francis annan, afari annobil, seth ashong, paschal awotwi, ekow baidoo, craig bariwck, constance barzay-browne, orin beaton, erica bensley, dick bernstein, becklyn boateng, adjetey boye, lucy bristow, wendy broom, jaki brown-karman, howard burden, colin callender, johnny carmichael, david carrigan, michael a carter, alan chesters, anthony cleal, ian corbould, paul corbould, cathy cosgrove, richard davies, sam degraft-johnson, bobby dhillon, gillian dodders, martin duncan, simon emanuel, george faber, james foran, simon fraser, kathy friend, roberta gardiner, danny glover, john goldschmidt, constantine gregory, brian hampton, brian harris, verity hawkes, ted hawkins, claire hirsch, simon holland, morgan johnson, dinah logan, kate mackenzie, david marsh, dedo mate-kole, david mellor, james metal, paul minume, caroline moore, charles nettey, clive noakes, robert ote nyansah, terry o'neill, sue parkinson, rob patridge, kieron phipps, fio kojo pobi, michael povey, trevor puckle, tony reading, mickey reeves, george s richardson, franc roddam, terry royce, crispian sallis, sammy seitz, dan shoring, helen smith, sam southwick, eddie stacey, kitty stanbrook, dave stapleton, gail stevens, heather storr, seth tandoh, raphael teiteh, emmanuel tetteh, gary thomas, darkoa tsibu, tony tucker, stuart urban, peter van der puije, graham walker, chris wheeldon, paul wrightson, miscellaneous notes.

Aired in United States June 15, 1996

Aired in United States June 5, 2007

Released in United States on Video November 19, 1996

Budget source: Viva Films 07/11/1994

Estimated budget: $5,000,000

Began shooting November 4, 1995.

Completed shooting January 1996.

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Deadly Voyage (1996)

Genre: drama / thriller, duration: 90 minuten, country: united states, directed by: john mackenzie, stars: omar epps , joss ackland and sean pertwee, imdb score: 6,6  (676), releasedate: 14 june 1996.

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Deadly Voyage plot

On the high seas, the crew of a Russian container ship discovers that there are nine African stowaways on board. When they are discovered, a number of crew members, led by sadistic officer Plesin and boatswain Romachenko, decide to get rid of the nine. Only Kingsley Ofusu survives the massacre and must fend off the murderous crew on the high seas. Based on a true story from 1992.

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DEADLY VOYAGE

When stowaways are found on board a Russian cargo ship, some of the officers and crew decide to dispose of them at sea. The last time they had a stowaway on board, the ship was fined heavily and black marks entered into their records, when he made it off the ship into a foreign port.

Deadly Voyage (1996)

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TELEVISION;Into Africa to Tell An Unlikely Tale Of Survival

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By Howard W. French

• Jan. 14, 1996

AS DANNY GLOVER TALKS, seated in his floating greenroom, the officers' mess of a rust-bucket cargo ship, his eyes seem to mist up and his jaw slackens slightly, the way they do in those police buddy movies when he discovers that his wife or partner is in peril. The display of emotion has nothing to do with the subplots of his latest Hollywood adventure, however; it's about a near lifelong obsession: Africa.

Mr. Glover has just landed in Ghana, flying 7,500 miles (by way of London) from Florida, where he was filming his latest movie, a fishing comedy with Joe Pesci. It is a Friday, and whatever the cost in jet lag, he is working through the fatigue on a dockside set a world away, knowing he must be back on location in the Everglades in just two days.

More used to performing before the cameras, the actor has swooped into West Africa as an executive producer of an HBO-BBC movie based on the true story of eight African stowaways who were slaughtered on the high seas by a Ukrainian crew in 1992. His juices are flowing because for him the film, "Deadly Voyage," scheduled to be shown in September, seems like the ideal vehicle to acquaint an American audience with an Africa it knows little about.

And at this stage of his career, one that has swung pendulum-like between glitzy, high-budget action films like the "Lethal Weapon" series and smaller movies with "a conscience," that is precisely what the 48-year-old actor would like most to achieve.

"This is one of those tales whose ramifications speak to all people who are looking for a better life," Mr. Glover said. "It takes place in the 20th century, but then there are certain images that connect immediately with the Middle Passage," the route used by slave ships sailing between Africa and the colonies.

"African Americans in particular are going to be able to relate this story to a part of their struggle," Mr. Glover said. "At the same time, when we see Senegalese, and Nigerians and Ghanaians on the streets in America, we ask ourselves, How did these brothers get here?"

"Deadly Voyage" is, above all, the story of Kingsley Ofosu, a 22-year-old dockhand and dreamer from Ghana, the sole survivor in a party of Africans who hid themselves in the hold of the MC Ruby, a Bahamian-flagged freighter they believed was heading for America. Six days after the stowaways left the Ghanaian port of Takoradi, their water container broke, and as they moved about the ship in search of something to drink, they were discovered.

What ensued is a tale of cruelty that would be unimaginable if international shipping experts did not say it was commonplace. The Africans were robbed of their savings, interrogated, beaten and held for three days without food in the ship's peak, a tiny space at the front of the vessel where the chain bearing the ship's anchor is stored.

Then came the slaughter.

In twos and threes, the stowaways were called onto the bridge where they were beaten with metal rods, stabbed, shot and thrown overboard somewhere off the coast of Portugal. The last to be called were Ofosu, who had been a sort of leader to the group, and his brother, Albert. When they emerged and saw crewmen in bloodied shirts, the two made a run for it. Albert was felled by the gunfire, but Kingsley managed to escape.

Much of the film revolves around the uncanny survival instincts of Kingsley Ofosu, played by the American actor Omar Epps, who appeared in "Higher Learning," "Major League II" and "Juice."

For three days, the stowaway and the crew played a deadly cat-and-mouse game in the depths of the ship. When MC Ruby reaches the French port of Le Havre, Mr. Ofosu made his break for freedom, shimmying down the ship's side and running straight toward a building marked Police.

Never sure of survival, he had taken pains to hide his personal papers in the ship's hold, hoping that some trace of his ordeal would remain and that his story would be told. This precaution proved to be critical in a case that ultimately turned on the word of a stowaway versus the denials of a crew.

Weeks after the filming began, a French court sentenced the captain and his first mate to life imprisonment and several crew members to 20 years each.

French harbor police made clear that Kingsley Ofosu's tale was unusual on two scores: that he survived, and that his story received any attention. "There are hundreds, thousands of stowaways like Kingsley," said one French officer. "This is the nearest thing to a perfect crime. The sharks clear up all the evidence. And we will never know how many crews have similar killings on their conscience."

If Mr. Glover was drawn to "Deadly Voyage" by its parallels with the slave trade and its horrific conditions, the behavior and fate of the Ukrainian crewmen -- bitter newcomers to the third world -- was just as compelling.

The MC Ruby's crew members had only recently been members of the proud and powerful Soviet merchant marine. Now, in a reshuffling of the international division of labor, they found themselves reduced to low-paid grunts in a system that cared little for their illustrious past.

The film depicts insult being heaped on injury when the crewmen discover that they, not the shipping companies they hire themselves out to, are liable for the stiff fines imposed in European ports on ships bearing illegal immigrants.

"A ship like this is a heap of old rust that hires cheap labor, and it is people of the third world who work as crew," said John Goldschmidt, the film's British producer. "Those people used to be Filipinos and others, but nowadays you find Ukrainians and Russians who are making less money than the dockers in many African ports. In a situation like this, where you stumble upon stowaways, some people will be heroes, others psychotics."

For his cast, Mr. Goldschmidt assembled actors from the global movie business's own informal class system: American stars accustomed to high fees, British actors accustomed to finely hewn small-scale dramas, and third worlders from places as far-flung as Haiti and Nigeria angling for a break.

The result is a diverse international ensemble -- from British actors like David Suchet (familiar to Americans as Hercule Poirot), who plays the shipping-insurance agent, to a crew made up of Russian and Russian-American players and "stowaways" plucked mostly from Ghana's budding local film industry.

ALWAYS NEAR THE FILM'S center, though, is Mr. Epps, a 22-year-old Brooklyn native making his first trip outside of the United States. Wide-eyed and surprisingly shy for someone whose film career has begun to take off so handsomely, Mr. Epps spent time with the real Kingsley Ofosu, who now lives in France, in Mr. Ofosu's native Takoradi to get a sense of the stowaway's life before the shipboard brutality.

"This had started out as just another job for me until I met Kingsley," the actor said over lunch in a hangar-like port warehouse opposite the ship that is standing in for the real MC Ruby. Mr. Epps quickly took to Ghana's spicy cuisine and even picked up a bit of Twi, the country's most widely-spoken language. He talked dreamily of buying land in Ghana and returning often.

Filming in the hold of the ship, the British director John MacKenzie somehow managed to look cool while all around him people sweated through multiple takes of the scene where the stowaways dropped their water tank. He had joined the project on short notice when the original director and screenwriter, Stuart Urban, became ill.

"Not being able to prepare, not knowing the script backward and forward, not having the kind of sense of character you get from being there at the start all make this a peculiar challenge," Mr. MacKenzie said. "If I accepted it, it is because I liked the story -- both the social issues and the action."

What hooked Mr. MacKenzie apparently also worked on executives at HBO, who say they never hesitated when considering the project. Mr. Glover's participation -- vetting the script and participating in casting -- was described by others involved as a "seal of Good Housekeeping." But the actor gives credit to HBO, the American cable programmer, not only for picking up a project that had made the rounds without success in Europe but also for doing much of the filming in Africa.

"HBO did something that is really cutting edge in taking this on," Mr. Glover said. "This is a story that a lot of people would say you could just not tell in a conventional way these days. For them it would just not be romantic enough."

He should know. Other dream projects of his -- from epics based on the Haitian revolution of two centuries ago to tales of West Africa's bloody resistance to colonial penetration -- have been rejected because of doubts over audience interest or concerns about the cost of filming big period pieces.

"I am not sure Hollywood will ever get beyond this sort of thing," Mr. Glover said of a seeming aversion to historic themes involving blacks. "But we have to push for it. Part of that involves doing projects like these, showing that they are viable."

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Deadly Voyage

• 1 hr 32 mins
• Drama, Suspense

Docudrama about stowaways being tracked down---and murdered---aboard a New York-bound freighter from Ghana. Omar Epps, Sean Pertwee. Captain: Joss Ackland. Vlachos: David Suchet. Albert: Jean-Claude LaMarre. Romachenko: Andrew Divoff. John MacKenzie directed.

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Kingsley Ofosu

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News | HBO’S `DEADLY VOYAGE’ AMBITIOUSLY SHEDS LIGHT…

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News | HBO’S `DEADLY VOYAGE’ AMBITIOUSLY SHEDS LIGHT ON A GLOBAL PROBLEM

It’s a seagoing horror story that might have come from the pen of Edgar Allan Poe or Joseph Conrad.

Eight stowaways, fleeing the tropics of Africa for the “promised land” of New York, are caught at sea by the crew of a troubled freighter whose captain and crew face heavy fines if stowaways are found aboard.

But there’s a way out–not for the stowaways, but for the crew.

Murder. One by one.

And the most horrifying thing about this maritime thriller, “Deadly Voyage,” premiering at 7 p.m. Saturday on HBO, is that it actually happened.

“That’s what got me into the film,” said Omar Epps, the “Higher Learning” star who plays Kingsley Ofusu, the only survivor of the slaughter. “It’s a true story. It’s different when it’s a great idea, but it’s fiction. This is living history. That gave me the strength and the focus to do this role.”

Actor Danny Glover, who participated in the film as executive producer, had similar feelings:

“You’d think this was something that might have happened 50 years ago or some other time before that. But this was just four years ago. It’s amazing, mind-boggling.”

The ship involved was Russian–the MC Ruby. British actor Joss Ackland, who was the villain in Glover’s action/thriller hit “Lethal Weapon 2,” is the heavy here as the ship’s aging, alcoholic captain.

Despite their adversarial roles on screen, he and Glover are fast friends.

“He’s a wonderful man,” said Glover. “A very lovely man.”

David Suchet, known to PBS “Mystery” audiences as Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, plays Viachos, a shipping line official who unknowingly precipitates the murders by clamping down hard on stowaway violations with the threat of huge fines and is later appalled at the consequences of his get-tough policy.

Jean-Claude LaMarre, of “Dead Presidents,” plays Epps’ brother and Sean Pertwee, of “Blue Juice,” is a boxer who joins the stowaways. The rest of the black cast is Ghanaian.

Stories not often told

This is the second based-on-fact movie HBO has produced in collaboration with the BBC. The first, last year’s grim “The Affair,” counted Harry Belafonte as executive producer and dealt with the actual story of a black American serviceman during World War II who was hanged when the husband of his English lover insisted he be prosecuted for rape.

“These aren’t stories that often sell tickets in the theater,” Glover said, “but they’re certainly stories that hopefully bring us a little closer to what we are, and who we should be, as human beings.”

“Deadly Voyage” was filmed aboard a ship moored at the Takoradi Docks in Ghana, on Africa’s tropical Atlantic coast.

“The climate was almost unbearable,” said Epps. “But it was one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my life, and I was doing one of the greatest films I’ll ever be in. When times got hard, I would tell the other cast members, `Listen. After each take we get to go up and have some water or drink some juice and get some fresh air. We’re telling a true story. There are still some people whose spirits linger on in this ship. This is nothing compared to what they went through.’ That’s what kept me going.”

The actual stowaways hid out in a main hold of the freighter, atop a huge stack of cocoa bean bags. After they were discovered, they were put in a dark vertical shaft used for storing heavy anchor chain. Re-creating that narrow space was the only instance in which a sound stage was used instead of the interior of the ship.

Reasons remain the same

The stowaways were ordinary men, most of them with families, hoping to get to America and find work. One hoped to be a cabdriver, another a chef. Epps’ character planned to become an engineer.

“These kids’ intentions were noble,” said Glover. “They’re poetic–and remindful of immigrants who came to this country a century or more ago. They wanted to work for a better life. It’s the same reason why people left England and Germany 200 years ago to come here–for a better life. To work.”

Epps, who is from Brooklyn and lives in Jersey City, acquired an impeccable Ghanaian accent in preparing for the part, but was asked to alter it into a more “British-Ghanaian” one to be more understandable.

The Russian crewmen and actual murderers are portrayed, not as arch, evil fiends, but as ordinary men who reacted wrongly when finding themselves in a desperate situation. The captain faced dismissal if a stowaway was found.

“It wasn’t all racism,” said Epps. “They just wanted to save themselves and they were willing to go to that extent to do so. The fact that they were dealing with Africans made it that much easier to make that decision. I think if they were any other type of stowaways they might have just taken the blow on the cheek or figured out some other way to solve their problem. But this was just, `Let’s get rid of the evidence,’ which happened to be human life.

“It’s a harsh life being a crewman. It’s just like any other work but you’re on a ship, so it’s kind of a city that has its own rules. And when they finish their work, they drink.”

He and Glover both said they hope the film will help Americans better understand the immigration problem.

“That’s a real big picture to look at,” Epps said. “I think the thing I want people to step away with is that this was happening in 1991. It’s not a period piece from the 1800s.

“That will really be a wake-up call. In Third World countries–all over the world, not just Africa–people don’t have the opportunity to live to their fullest potential. But they all have the desire so they take chances risking their lives and their families. There’s so much to be done politically and economically for those countries.”

The captain and first mate of MC Ruby were sentenced to 25 years to life and the rest of the murder crew got 20 to life.

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Egypt is suffering neither war nor chaos, but people are migrating away anyway

Aya Batrawy

Egyptians were among the hundreds of migrants on a ship that sank off of Greece last month. The deadly voyage cast a spotlight on the number of Egyptians risking it all for a chance at a better life.

ADRIAN FLORIDO, HOST:

One of the people lost on the migrant ship that sank off the coast of Greece last month was a young Egyptian man who'd hardly ever ventured outside his rural town before. But like many, he set off first to Libya, lured by smugglers, promising to get him to Europe. NPR's Aya Batrawy spoke with his brother and others to find out why so many are fleeing Egypt, a country that's suffering neither war nor chaos.

AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Mahmoud Ibrahim's family got a call a few days after he'd vanished. He was in Libya and needed money. His brother Mohammed tells me over the phone, the family was stunned. The 28-year-old with a wife and baby lived in a poor, rural town in northern Egypt's province of Sharqia and had never even traveled as far as Cairo. Now, he owed Libyan smugglers $4,500 for a spot aboard a ship bound for Italy, an astronomical figure for families in these parts of Egypt.

MOHAMMED IBRAHIM: (Through interpreter) Once he told us to pay, we sold some land that we had, collected money from here and there and borrowed. I mean, your brother is telling you, pay for me or you know the rest. You know what will happen.

BATRAWY: The smugglers control where migrants sleep, how much food they get and which ships people get on. The family paid a masked man in Egypt, part of a network of smugglers who promised safe crossings for desperate Egyptians looking for better lives. They find leads and even lure children on Facebook and chat groups.

IBRAHIM: (Through interpreter) They promised him life is beautiful, easy. You'll never touch the water. Just two or three days, and you'll be in Italy and see a new world. It's delusion - delusion.

BATRAWY: Mahmoud Ibrahim never got to see a new world. He's among hundreds of Egyptians, Pakistanis, Syrians and Palestinians presumed dead after their overcrowded ship, the Adriana, sank last month near Greece, far from the Italian shores they dreamt to reach. Facebook pages are full of photos of missing Egyptians and families desperately seeking word on their loved ones.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

MOHAMMED AL-SHARKAWI: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: In one post, a man named Mohammed al-Sharkawi goes live with his phone camera as he searches helplessly in Greece for his brother and cousins. Through a fence and metal railings, he yells out to Egyptian survivors of the Adriana for the names of survivors from his hometown.

AL-SHARKAWI: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: He then reads out the names of the six survivors from his village.

BATRAWY: Egyptians from poor towns have long crossed the sea to Europe, but those numbers soared dramatically last year. The International Organization for Migration counted nearly 22,000 Egyptian migrants arriving to Europe mostly by sea last year, topping every other nationality. Including from war-torn countries like Afghanistan and Syria. Rehab Reda says she knows why her husband, Mustafa Adel el-Sayyed, left Egypt and risked his life for a shot at Europe.

REHAB REDA: (Through interpreter) The cost of living is going up every day, not every month or every year - no, every day. There are new prices for food, clothes, for living. So our income isn't enough. And this is the case for everyone, not just for us.

BATRAWY: Millions of poor Egyptians rely on government subsidies and handouts to survive. But Egypt's economy has suffered major blows over the past year. The price of food has skyrocketed since early 2022, correlating with the spike in Egyptian migrants arriving to Europe. Reda says her husband's job as a tailor in Sharqia wasn't enough to keep up with the cost of their three children.

REDA: (Through interpreter) He wanted to do something for his kids. He would say, I am 35 years old, and my kids are young. And I can't do anything for them.

BATRAWY: Out of an estimated 750 people on the Adriana, only 104 survived, including 43 Egyptians. Reda's husband is among the survivors. But he's now detained in Greece, one of nine Egyptians accused of being part of the smuggling network. Reda says her husband is innocent and that the real smugglers don't risk their lives on these boats. After we hang up, she sends me a voice note with one more thing.

REDA: (Non-English language spoken).

BATRAWY: Her cousin was also on the ship, and they don't know what happened to him. She asks if I can find out if he's dead or maybe alive in a hospital or camp somewhere.

BATRAWY: She sends me his photo. In it, Saeed Mohammed's black hair is trimmed with a fade. The 23-year-old is wearing white sneakers, black jeans and a fitted white T-shirt with the words Louis Vuitton stitched across the front. I checked the list of Egyptian survivors. His name isn't there. Aya Batrawy. NPR News, Dubai.

(SOUNDBITE OF STORMZY SONG, "FIRE + WATER")

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A Humanitarian Voyage Is Hoping to Break Israel’s Blockade

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Today an international group of activists is setting sail for Gaza, hoping to deliver badly needed aid to Palestinians there. The effort follows a similar voyage to breach Israel’s blockade 14 years ago — which the IDF met with deadly force.

Activists hold a press conference inside a ship belonging to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition while it anchors in the Tuzla seaport near Istanbul, Turkey, on April 19, 2024. (Yasin Akgul / AFP via Getty Images)

Today, a thousand activists with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition have planned to set sail from Turkey aboard three ships with over five thousand tons of humanitarian aid, including food, medicine, and even ambulance vehicles. From a port in Istanbul, the flotilla will be heading to the Gaza Strip, where the ongoing Israeli genocide has killed at least 34,262 Palestinians, including 14,500 children and 8,400 women, according to Al Jazeera . Coming amid Israel’s seventeen-year blockade of Gaza, the strip is now mere weeks away from famine, according to the World Food Programme .

Although the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is adamant that its plans are both lawful and peaceful, it is concerned about how the Israeli military will react. This is due in large part of the fact that Israel met the last flotilla with deadly force.

“We have no idea what Israel is going to do,” says Elliott Adams, an activist with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. “They’ve tried to sink some boats by ramming. They’ve also captured boats, taken all humanitarian observers and crew hostage, put them in jail and stolen the boats. . . . And, as you know, in the case of the MV Mavi Marmara , they killed ten of the people on board and wounded fifty.”

Adams is referring to a 2010 incident in which Israeli forces attacked a Gaza-bound convoy of aid boats, killing and injuring dozens of passengers. Shortly after the raid and ensuing fallout, Israel caved to international pressure, loosening its blockade of the Gaza Strip. Freedom Flotilla Coalition activists hope their current voyage will provide badly needed aid to Palestinians and perhaps similarly increase pressure on Israel to end its brutal siege.

“Similar Disasters Are Likely to Reoccur”

In 2007, the Israeli government began its ongoing blockade of Gaza as a response to Hamas sweeping Palestinian elections and wresting control of the territory from its political rivals. Although Israel maintains that the blockade is meant to keep Palestinian militants from obtaining weapons or manufacturing them from “dual-use” materials, the Israeli human rights organization Gisha has documented the prohibition of all but a very narrow list of items, barring basics such as paper, toys, and chocolate.

Indeed, the blockade was severe enough to drive Hamas to breach the border wall between Gaza and Egypt in early 2008, freeing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to cross and purchase three months’ worth of food in just one week. Later that year, Israel launched what it called “Operation Cast Lead,” the 2008–09 war on Gaza, in which Israeli forces killed 1,417 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights .

In May 2010, international activists also attempted to breach the Israeli blockade of Gaza, as chronicled in a report to the United Nations General Assembly by the Human Rights Council. On May 30, six civilian ships that had departed from Turkey rendezvoused in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Lebanon. Sailing together toward Gaza, the ships were contacted by the Israeli Navy, which demanded they change course. When captains explained that all 748 passengers aboard the flotilla were unarmed and that their cargo was entirely humanitarian, the navy jammed their communications. The UN report notes that Israeli forces never requested to inspect the boats’ cargo.

In the predawn hours of May 31, Israeli boats and helicopters raided the flotilla, with the MV Mavi Marmara facing the brunt of the violence. Israeli naval forces fired tear gas and paintballs while lobbing stun and smoke grenades, but were unable to board the ship, which passengers defended with water hoses and other items including chairs.

Following this failure, an Israeli helicopter fired live rounds onto the deck, killing at least four passengers while allowing commandos to rappel down. Passengers attempted to disarm the commandos and defend themselves with tools at hand, such as metal rods, while being targeted with both live and less-lethal fire from Israeli forces, who killed five more.

Among the dead were one Turkish American and nine Turkish citizens, the last of whom was left in a coma and died four years later. The UN report notes that multiple passengers appeared to have been killed at close range, some potentially after attempts to surrender.

The Israeli Navy also commandeered the five other ships in the flotilla, albeit without any deaths, towing all six ships to an Israeli port. All of the remaining passengers were deported, some only after being detained and threatened with prosecution. Although none of the ships made it to Gaza, observers like Gisha credit the flotilla and international condemnation following the raid with Israel’s decision to loosen its blockade of Gaza that July.

The UN Human Rights Council issued its report on the incident in September 2010. The authors concluded that Israeli forces had not only violated international law during their raid on the flotilla, but called for Israel to end its blockade of Gaza: “The attack on the flotilla must be viewed in the context of the ongoing problems between the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority and people. . . . Similar disasters are likely to reoccur unless there is a dramatic shift in the existing paradigm.”

“If I Could Stop the Genocide”

Despite the violence unleashed by Israeli forces on the MV Mavi Marmara in 2010, activists with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition are embarking on a similar journey today. According to Adams, a retiree from upstate New York, negotiations with Turkish authorities regarding the flotilla’s departure were prolonged by attempts by the Israeli and US governments to prevent the mission altogether.

Adams says that all of the activists on board have been trained in and are committed to nonviolence, and that their cargo is entirely humanitarian. And though the US military is constructing a floating pier off of the coast of Gaza, the flotilla requires no new infrastructure to deliver aid.

“We have the capacity to directly offload it onto the shore,” says Adams. “We don’t need anything that isn’t there.”

Although Adams is confident the cargo shipped by the flotilla will make a difference in Gaza, which faced a total blockade by Israel following October 7, he acknowledges the hundreds of trucks of aid stuck at the Gaza Strip’s land crossings, which Israel continues to delay with claims of inspection. To that end, there are hopes among the activists that, as in 2010, the flotilla will push Israel to loosen its blockade. And it is possible that, as in 2010, the flotilla will be intercepted by the Israeli Navy.

“My wife said, ‘People have died doing this very work you’re doing. . . . How can you go?’” Adams shares. “And I say — and it would be true of her too — if I could stop the genocide in Gaza by dying right now, it wouldn’t take me five minutes to decide. Of course I’d do that, to save hundreds of thousands of lives. Who wouldn’t? On the other hand, this is a much lower risk.”

The departure of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition follows a litany of US measures arming Israel and shielding it from accountability, most recently including a bipartisan measure to send an additional $26 billion in funding to Israel and the United States casting the sole veto against full Palestinian membership to the United Nations.

“It’s critically important that people recognize the reality of the crisis there and that they do everything that they can,” Adams said. “You have to understand that this could have not been happening were it not for the US government. We have a moral obligation to do what we can to stop it, because we are causing it.”