(Washington, D.C., 6/9/2025) – The US Council of Muslim Organizations (USCMO), the nation’s umbrella group of Muslim associations, unequivocally condemns yesterday’s Israeli commando attack and seizure of the unarmed Madleen Gaza aid flotilla in international waters as brazen state piracy, barbarous terrorism, and an illegal and uncivilized act violating international law, including maritime and humanitarian law.
We call upon the U.S. government to compel the Israelis to immediately release the Madleen and its crew and passengers and allow them to distribute the desperately needed aid to the starving Palestinian children, women, elderly, and men of Gaza.
USCMO Secretary General Oussama Jammal said today in a statement:
“International law requires UN member states to break criminal humanitarian aid sieges like the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza that is literally starving its people,” he said. “The failure of nations to act on this international law means this moral imperative has fallen to the people of the world to fulfill it. That is why the Freedom Flotilla set sail with food, water, and medicine for the dying and injured innocent of Gaza.”
Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories (oPt), which include Gaza, said in a post on X, “Every Mediterranean port should send boats with aid, solidarity, and humanity to Gaza. They shall sail together – united, they will be unstoppable.”
The Israeli commandos that pirated the aid ship in international waters about 100 miles from Gaza ordered the Freedom Flotilla’s 12 volunteer activists and the journalists at gun point to throw their cellphones into the sea and put their hands in the air, while cutting off ship communications.
This came after Israeli military quadcopters sprayed the ship down with a thick white substance that some speculated could be a toxic irritant, or a substance designed to make the Madleen more readily trackable.
The Israeli government has reportedly detained the Madleen’s crew and the Freedom Flotilla’s activists and journalists in Ashdod for interrogation.
Already, Israeli ministers are calling for an absurd screening of the Madleen’s activist volunteers for evidence of their participation in the October 7 attacks, while leveling baseless accusations of antisemitism and Hamas support at its high-profile activists such as Sweden’s Greta Thunberg.
We urge the U.S. Administration to act with all haste to save lives and uphold the international law of the seas. President Trump should also insist on three immediate humanitarian lifesaving measures, especially after the Israeli-U.S. Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) instantaneous collapse, and in light of its misuse as a lethal aid-washing mechanism enabling the U.S.-backed Israeli genocide of the people of Gaza to continue:
1. Impose a swift, permanent ceasefire in Gaza and the withdrawal of all Israeli troops
2. Promptly lift the illegal Israeli blockade on Gaza
3. Allow full-scale, unfettered aid delivery to Gaza’s 2.3 million starving and medically deprived Palestinians through the UN, UNRWA, and global independent humanitarian relief organizations.
President Trump must act fast. Delay means death.
