The aid ship Conscience remains stranded in international waters 36 hours after being struck by two projectiles.
Setting the Trap
The vessel, which belongs to The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), a grassroots solidarity movement working to end the Israeli blockade of Ghazzah, set sail from the port of Bizerte on Tunisia’s northern coast at 8:30pm on Tuesday April 29th. The 68-metre-long ship was carrying food and medical supplies destined for Ghazzah. Its sailing, including its routing, were not publicised, in order to avoid the ship being detained as had happened during a 2024 attempt to break Israel’s blockade.
With 12 crew and six volunteers, not 30 as originally reported, Conscience slipped eastwards towards the Mediterranean island of Malta where it was due to pick up an additional 100 volunteers including the climate-change campaigner Greta Thunberg. It would then continue the 1,100-mile journey to Ghazzah.
By late Thursday evening, the vessel was approaching an anchorage area east of Malta, known by its maritime code of OPL-ANCH. The area is designated for ships to hold before entering the port and is often busy with service boats ferrying supplies and crew. Critically, OPL-ANCH is within Malta’s maritime jurisdiction.
Conscience never made it to the anchorage area. Just after midnight, while outside Malta’s territorial waters, the vessel came under attack from two precision strikes. The first caused a fire and loss of propulsion, the second breached the hull and risked the ship sinking. There were no life-threatening injuries. A SOS distress call was immediately broadcast, and a nearby Maltese tug was dispatched to extinguish the fire. Once this was done the tug left the area. The crew and volunteers remained on the boat assuming they would be towed into port. As of the morning of Saturday May 3rd, the Maltese authorities have denied multiple requests for the ship to dock.
The Missing Flag
Since the Friday morning attack on Conscience, FFC officials in Malta have also appealed to Maltese maritime authorities to allow Conscience to come ashore. In their discussions they were informed the boat was effectively ‘stateless’ after its flag was unexpectedly withdrawn on Thursday.
Thiago Avila, Steering Committee member for FFC, explained to me “The boat was registered under the Palau [Pacific Island State] flag. But the problem is that yesterday [Thursday] the Palau government unilaterally and without notice withdrew our flag only a few hours before the attack. This is very suspicious, because once they remove the flag, it leaves the boat vulnerable. Any attack on a vessel under the Palau flag would have been deemed an attack on the sovereignty of Palau.”
Avila continued, “This is also a violation of maritime law, to remove the flag of a boat while it is at sea. How can we proceed with the voyage? How could we take shelter? Normal practice is to remove a flag when the boat is docked.”
With no known reason for removing Conscience from Palau’s shipping register the timing and secretive manner of the action is highly irregular.
The Mysterious Hercules
Late Thursday afternoon an Israeli Air Force C-130 Hercules, registration 545, took off from an airbase south of Tel Aviv. It travelled west for three hours before dropping to 4,000 feet and performing a series of low-level sweeping movements over Malta’s eastern seaboard. It flew over the OPL-ANCH anchorage area multiple times. Aircraft 545 then turned west and headed back towards its airbase in Israel. Although the aircraft never landed in Malta, it was in Maltese airspace for approximately an hour.
By noon on Friday there was growing interest in the presence of the Israeli Air Force Hercules near the attack site, with UK Defence Journal asking: “Have we just witnessed the use of loitering drones deployed from a manned military aircraft?”
The journal suggested the inward-bent metal plating and localised burning were consistent with ‘a small external explosive or incendiary impact,’ and the projectile was probably not a missile but ‘something smaller, more surgical.’ They speculated Conscience may have been the victim of a suicide drone, also known as a ‘loitering munition.’
The design of loitering munitions makes them effective at hovering or loitering above a battlefield until their target is exposed, at which point they are released to attack. They are compact units that offer precision targeting and are normally used to disable rather than destroy infrastructure. Israel is the world’s biggest supplier of loitering munitions according to research by the Center for New American Security (CNAS).
The UK Defence Journal concluded the nature and apparent low yield of the strike appears to point to a smaller, less sophisticated loitering drone, probably launched ‘locally.’ Some sources suspect the Hercules acted as a release vehicle for the drones. The aircraft has an ample sized cargo bay and is equipped with a rear loading ramp that can be extended inflight.
The Mavi Marmara Nightmare
In May 2010, six FFC ships set sail for Ghazzah. They got 80 miles from the coast before the largest vessel, Mavi Marmara, was stormed by Israeli security forces. Commandos descended on ropes dangling from helicopters, others climbed aboard from high-speed ribs. The Israeli forces opened fire on the unarmed activists, killing ten. Israel went unpunished and was never held to account for its murderous actions, although the episode has plagued it in the court of public opinion. If it was ever to stop a flotilla attempt to breach Ghazzah’s 18-year siege again, it would need to be more low key in its actions.
A Maltese Mess
When I spoke with Avila, he confirmed members of the FFC team had tried to reach Conscience by boat on Friday but were stopped by the Maltese Coastguard, who had put a cordon around the damaged vessel. The bizarre behaviour of the Maltese authorities in the lead-up and aftermath of the attack have many, including Avila, asking awkward questions of the small island state.
“We really want to get to the bottom of this to understand if there is Maltese complicity, or if the attack was without Maltese authorities’ consent, in which case this is an attack on European territory. It’s an act of terrorism,” Avila said.
With the Maltese government tight lipped about the Conscience attack, many are left wondering whether Israel moved its theatre of war to the middle of the Mediterranean last week – and if they did, who helped them.
— ©2025 Sul Nowroz – Real Media staff writer Insta: @theafghanwriter
