THE last live footage we saw from the Freedom Flotilla boat, Handala, late on Saturday night, as it coursed its way across the Mediterranean to Gaza, was Palestinian-American human rights lawyer, Huwaida Arraf, giving the Israeli forces that had just surrounded them a lecture in international law.

As an IDF official warned the 21 civilians on board that, “in accordance with international law,” Israeli forces would seize the vessel if the crew did not change their course, Arraf could not suppress a smile and an eye roll. Then she took up the ship radio to reply.

“Israeli navy, this is the civilian vessel, Handala. Let me give you a lesson in international law,” Arraf said. “Any blockade that deliberately starves a civilian population is a violation of international law. It is not only that, it is a war crime. You have no legal authority to enforce an unlawful blockade. Therefore, we demand that you stand down.

“You are responsible for the wellbeing of every civilian on board this vessel,” she continued. “As an occupying power in Gaza, you are responsible for the health and well-being of the civilian population there. Not only have you disregarded that obligation, but you are actively exterminating the people. You have engineered a famine. You are deliberately starving civilians and children before the eyes of the world.

“Our vessel does not constitute any threat to you. We carry only humanitarian aid and therefore you have no authority to intercept or otherwise attack our vessel. We demand again that you stand down.”

After which the Israelis boarded the Handala and all direct communication was lost. The cameras on the ship kept rolling for a while as IDF soldiers crowded onto the boat, until they found them all and turned them off.

The Handala, which sailed under the maritime name Navarn, followed the route of the Madleen, another Freedom Flotilla ship, that was intercepted by the Israelis on June 9. That crew, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, were arrested and detained in Israel before all were eventually released. Both boats carried only civilians and a modest cargo of aid — more a symbolic act to break the siege but also a chance to at least bring something to Gaza’s now desperate population and give them hope.

For hours on Saturday, many of us watched the Handala’s livestream on Instagram, as drones circled and the crew appealed to the Israeli navy, who they could hear communicating with other vessels in the area, but which refused to answer the Handala.

We listened as Arraf sent repeated and ever more urgent messages to the Egyptian navy to allow the Handala to enter their waters. “Could you repeat? We could not make out what your were saying,” Arraf pleaded in English as indistinct voices came back over the static. “Hurry,” she said.

“Try speaking to them in Arabic” someone suggested. A voice finally answered and told them to wait. So they sat below deck, lifejackets on and flashlights lit, and they waited.

To break the tension, Amazon labour union founder, Christian Smalls, one of the Handala crew that included 70-year-old Norwegian activist, Vigdis Bjorvand, British former United Nations staffer, Chloe Ludden, and Gabrielle Cathala, a deputy in the French parliament, decided to lead them in song. A raucous chant broke out, the joy masking what all of them surely knew was coming next.

The Handala had been within seven hours sailing time and just 40 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza when it was seized.

“Seven hours from the worst crime of our lifetime,” said Australian journalist, Tan Safi, as she live-streamed from the boat, bathed in the infrared light that illuminated her in the darkness.

As with the Madleen, we had been able to follow the progress of the Handala live on Instagram and Telegram and via a special webpage featuring a map that tracked the Handala’s progress in real time — a pulsing red dot driving inexorably towards Gaza. Even after the raid, the red dot kept blinking and moving closer to shore, a bitter illusion of hope as the Handala’s crew were now no longer in charge and the port they were destined for would be Israel's.

Organisers from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition continued to put out emergency alerts on each crew member throughout the night, urging their fellow countrymen and women to tag their respective state departments and providing the address to do so. “SOS! The crew on ‘Handala’ have been kidnapped by Israeli forces,” read the messages on Telegram.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition knows the boats will have to keep coming. But the question is why are they alone? Surely it is past time for a D-Day-style armada?

There is no earthly use in French President Emanuel Macron saying that France will recognise Palestine as a state in September when, by then, there may be no surviving Palestinians left to live there.

And the statement put out on July 16 by just 12 member countries of the 30-country Hague Group, will remain just empty words unless they take concrete steps right now to end the starvation and the bombings.

In contrast, the Handala crew made their statement, hours before the ship was seized, announcing that under such an eventuality they would go on hunger strike and refuse any food provided by the Israeli forces.

In the meantime, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is demanding that international pressure be brought to bear, not only to free the civilian crew of the Handala but, more importantly, to end the war crimes in Gaza.

“Israeli officials have ignored the International Court of Justice’s binding orders that require the facilitation of humanitarian access to Gaza,” the coalition said in a statement released late on Saturday evening after the Handala was seized. “The continued attacks on peaceful civilian missions represent a grave violation of international law.”

But not according to Israeli authorities.

“The Israeli navy has stopped the vessel Navarn from illegally entering the maritime zone of the coast of Gaza,” the Israel Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday night. “Unauthorised attempts to breach the blockade are dangerous, unlawful and undermine ongoing humanitarian efforts.”

But that “humanitarian effort”, as the world has now seen, is nothing but a cruel deathtrap.

Wrote Gaza-based photojournalist, Walid Mahmoud, just last week: “I’ve never in my life seen a humanitarian organisation open aid distribution points after midnight, calling starving people to come under the sounds of air strikes, snipers and a relentless killing machine. And once people arrive, the guards open fire, killing dozens.”

Linda Pentz Gunter is a writer based in Takoma Park, Maryland.