A Global Sumud flotilla vessel floats in the waters as Tunisian Maritime National Guard boats conduct an inspection in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia, Sept. 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jihed Abidellaoui

Tunisian authorities have rejected as false a claim by the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) for Gaza that one of its main boats was struck on Tuesday by a drone at a port in Tunisia.

Tunisia’s interior ministry said that reports of a drone hitting a boat at its Sidi Bou Said port “have no basis in truth,” and that a fire broke out on the vessel itself. The flotilla had said that all six passengers and crew were safe despite the alleged strike.

The Portuguese-flagged boat, carrying the flotilla‘s steering committee, sustained fire damage to its main deck and below-deck storage, the GSF said in a statement.

In tandem with the denial from Tunisian authorities, video circulated on social media apparently showing that the fire was caused by a crew member misfiring a flare that landed back on the boat, not by a drone.

BREAKING: New footage from Greta’s boat shows a crew member misfiring a flare, which lands back on the boat.

These people lie for sport. There was never any drone. pic.twitter.com/GSSSvjy23I

— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) September 9, 2025

The flotilla is an international initiative seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza using civilian boats supported by delegations from 44 countries, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and Portuguese left-wing politician Mariana Mortagua.

A video posted by the GSF on X purportedly showed the moment “the Family Boat was struck from above,” capturing a luminous flying object hitting the vessel with smoke rising soon after.

After the incident, dozens of people gathered outside the Sidi Bou Said port, where the flotilla‘s boats were located at the time, waving Palestinian flags and chanting “Free Palestine,” a Reuters witness said.

Israel has imposed a naval blockade on the coastal enclave since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, saying it aims to stop weapons from reaching the internationally desgnated terrorist group.

The blockade has remained in place through the current war, which began when Hamas attacked southern Israel in October 2023, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages.

In June, Israeli naval forces boarded and seized a British-flagged yacht carrying Thunberg, among others. Israel dismissed the aid ship as a propaganda stunt in support of Hamas.

The GSF also said an investigation into the drone attack was underway and its results would be released once available.

“Acts of aggression aimed at intimidating and derailing our mission will not deter us. Our peaceful mission to break the siege on Gaza and stand in solidarity with its people continues with determination and resolve,” the GSF said.

The United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese, who was at the port, told Reuters: “We do not know who carried out the attack, but we would not be surprised if it was Israel. If confirmed, it is an attack against Tunisian sovereignty.”

Albanese has been widely accused by critics of using her position to denigrate Israel and justify Hamas’s use of terrorism against Israelis.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli side.

A picture released by the Israeli Army says to show Israeli soldiers conducting operations in a location given as Tel Al-Sultan area, Rafah Governorate, Gaza, in this handout image released April 2, 2025. Photo: Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS

Britain has concluded that Israel is not committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza but criticized “utterly appalling” civilian suffering there, in a government letter, ahead of a meeting between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and the Israeli president.

Israel has been accused of perpetrating genocide in Gaza despite its military campaign there targeting the ruling terrorist group Hamas, which openly seeks the Jewish state’s destruction and started the current war with its Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of and massacre across southern Israeli communities.

Jerusalem rejects the accusation, citing its right to self-defense following the Oct. 7 attack, in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages.

Israel also says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication.

Another challenge for Israel is Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

Starmer is due to meet Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a leader who has a largely ceremonial role, at Downing Street on Wednesday, his spokesperson said.

The Gaza war has strained Britain-Israel relations. The Israeli government is enraged by Britain‘s plan to recognize a Palestinian state and block Israeli officials from attending its biggest defense trade show this week.

Starmer is facing criticism from some of his Labour lawmakers for agreeing to meet Herzog.

Asked whether the government’s legal duty to prevent genocide had been triggered, David Lammy, Britain‘s foreign minister until Friday, wrote in a Sept. 1 letter to a parliamentary committee that the government had carefully considered the risk of genocide.

“As per the Genocide Convention, the crime of genocide occurs only where there is specific ‘intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group,’” he said in the letter seen by Reuters.

“The government has not concluded that Israel is acting with that intent.”

Lammy was foreign secretary from mid-2024 until Friday when he was replaced by Yvette Cooper and appointed deputy prime minister as part of a reshuffle.

His letter added: “The high civilian casualties, including women and children, and the extensive destruction in Gaza, are utterly appalling. Israel must do much more to prevent and alleviate the suffering that this conflict is causing.”

The long-held British government position has been that genocide should be determined by courts.

Israeli protestors take part in a rally demanding the immediate release of the hostages kidnapped during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack on Israel by Hamas, and the end of war in Gaza, in Jerusalem September 6, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

Sometimes, truth is counterintuitive. For Israel, insights of classical mythology could help to understand the country’s survival options.

From ancient Greece, Jerusalem could learn that Olympian gods had condemned Sisyphus to roll a huge rock to the top of a mountain — and the stone would fall back of its own weight. By rendering this judgment, the deities imposed a punishment of interminable and useless labor. Simultaneously, they revealed something paradoxical about human life in general:

Useless labor need not be meaningless. Amid tragic circumstances, such labor can even be heroic.

As a metaphor, Israel is Sisyphus. Foreseeably, for the Jewish State, the gargantuan rock will always roll back to its point of origin. So why should “Sisyphus” push?

For Israel, there is no comprehensive military solution to its multiple security problems. Accordingly, in the heroic fashion of Sisyphus, Israelis will need to accept the burden of incessant conflict and avoid continuously contrived remedies (e.g., the childishly-imagined “Abraham Accords”). But what then?

For Israel, though difficult to understand, the burden of perpetual conflict is not the “worst case.” That case is not to endure one war or terror attack after another. Rather, it is to try to work its way free from the penalties of an absurd geopolitics by knowingly enlarging the absurdity. A pertinent example of this self-defiling contradiction would be for Israel to wittingly carve “Palestine” from its own still-living body.

Let us return to the elucidating Greek myth. Israel should recall that Sisyphus is not a pathetic figure. He is a heroic and tragic figure. This is because he labored valiantly, against all odds, and in spite of an all-too-conspicuous futility.

Today, 20 years after Ariel Sharon’s Gaza “disengagement,” hopes for “Palestinian demilitarization” endure. These are inherently vain hopes. For the moment, the theatrical genre portrayed by this durability can be described as “farce.” Resembling the bleak and minimalist poetics of Samuel Beckett, the unraveling “play” is meaningful but still preposterous. True tragedy contains calamity, but it may also reveal greatness. In the final analysis, such greatness means heroic attempts to endure misfortune without losing hope.

The Jewish people have always accepted an obligation to ward off disasters “as needed.” Formally, at least, Jews have understood that all humans have “free will.” Saadia Gaon included freedom of the will among the central teachings of Judaism, and Maimonides affirmed that human beings must stand alone in the world “to know what is good and what is evil, with none to prevent him from either doing good or evil.”

For Israel, free will should be oriented toward life — to the blessing, not the curse. Israel’s highest obligation should be to strive in the direction of individual and collective self-preservation by using refined intelligence and disciplined acts of will. Where such striving would be limited to narrowly-tactical remedies, the outcome could never rise to the dignifying levels of tragedy.

In the ancient Greek vision of “high tragedy,” there is clarity on one key point: The tragic victim is one whom “the gods kill for their sport, as wanton boys do flies.” It is precisely this wantonness, this caprice, that makes a situation authentically tragic. Otherwise, it would merely display pathos.

In proper theatrical terminology, there is tragedy but there is also farce. In farce, matters may end badly, but sometimes there is a last-minute rescue by deus ex machine, a “god in the machine.” By definition, of course, no “god in the machine” could rescue a Jewish state. To recall the specifically Jewish commentary of Rabbi Yania: “A man should never put himself in a place of danger, and say that a miracle will save him, lest there be no miracle….” (Talmud, Sota 32a and Codes; Yoreh De’ah 116).

Aristotle understood, in Poetics, that true tragedy must elicit pity and fear, but not pathos. Pathos is unheroic suffering. Moreover, the Greek philosopher identified tragedy with characters who are “good,” who suffer only because they commit grave error (hamartia) unknowingly.

The promise of meaningful Israeli peace with a persistently murderous adversary, whether Iran, “Palestine,” or others, has always been a delusion. Nonetheless, for Jerusalem, protracted war or terror could hardly represent a coherent policy choice. Quo Vadis?

Like Sisyphus, Israel must learn to understand that its “rock,” the agonizingly heavy stone of national survival, will never remain securely at the summit. Still, it must continuously struggle without tying collective survival to transient tactical victories or some imagined condition of “total victory.” Truth is exculpatory. Israel must prepare to labor against the ponderous “rock” for no other reason than to endure.   

For Israel, true heroism lies in recognizing something far beyond normal understanding: Pain and uncertainty are not necessarily unbearable; sometimes, they must be borne with full faith and equanimity. Failing such tragic awareness, the government and people of Israel would continue to grasp at tactical victories and illusory remedies. The most illusory remedy of all is “total victory.”

Israel is not Sisyphus, and there is no reason to believe it must endure without personal and collective satisfactions. Even if finally made aware that the struggle toward a permanently-receding summit may define “success,” the Jewish State could still learn that tragic struggle would be heroic.

To survive into the future, Israel’s only real choice will be to keep rolling the rock upwards, not surrender to any vacant political or diplomatic promises. On all the official maps of authoritative Palestinian decision-makers, not just Hamas, Israel has been sentenced to cartographic disappearance. On these maps, ipso facto, Israel has already suffered a virtual extermination. The best way to keep such extermination figurative is not to seek “total victory,” but to struggle heroically for sequentially achievable goals.

Unlike Sisyphus, Israel and its people can still enjoy palpable achievements and multiplying satisfactions. Like Sisyphus, Israel should recognize that though its life will require perpetual struggle, the struggle itself could be ennobling.

Prof. Louis René Beres was educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971) and is the author of many books and scholarly articles dealing with international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. In Israel, Prof. Beres was Chair of Project Daniel (PM Sharon). His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; 2nd ed., 2018).