Life Support Due to Depart Siracusa for Global Sumud Flotilla

EMERGENCY’s search and rescue ship Life Support is due to depart Siracusa, Italy, together with the Italian delegation of the Global Sumud Flotilla. The search and rescue ship will be the last of the Italian boats to leave for Gaza, serving as an observer and offering medical and logistical support to any ships that may need it.

EMERGENCY, alongside the Italian fleet, will join the international delegation made up of boats that have already left from Spain and Tunisia and, further along the route, from Greece. Life Support will provide medical assistance to participants where needed, help repair damaged technical equipment, and contribute water and food supplies to boats in the fleet.

“EMERGENCY has decided to join this civil society-led initiative because it has seen first-hand the conditions of the population in the Gaza Strip,” says Anabel Montes Mier, Life Support Head of Mission. “The EMERGENCY team, who work in two health centres in Gaza’s Khan Younis governorate, report an incredibly grave situation. Faced with the silence and inaction of governments, the mass participation of regular citizens in public demonstrations in support of this humanitarian coalition is a sign of a desire for peace and justice, which we share and want to support.”

EMERGENCY’s search and rescue vessel, Life Support, has been operational in the central Mediterranean Sea since December 2022 and has rescued a total of 3,001 people in 36 missions. It will set sail for the Flotilla tomorrow, joining the Italian delegation with a 29-person crew of doctors, nurses, logisticians, cultural mediators, rescuers and sailors on board.

EMERGENCY has been in Gaza since August 2024 and currently works in its own healthcare clinic in al-Qarara, Khan Younis, providing first aid, basic medical and surgical care for adults and children, reproductive health outpatient services, post-operative nursing follow-up care, stabilisation of medical and surgical emergencies, and hospital transfers.

Since the clinic opened in January 2025 to the end of July, it had seen an average of 241 people per day, with peaks of up to 400. Out of the more than 23,000 visits during this period, more than half were minors.

EMERGENCY’s work also continues to provide essential care to the population in the primary healthcare clinic set up by the local organisation CFTA (Culture & Free Thought Association) in al-Mawasi, where patients receive basic medical care, medications, and the dressings needed for post-surgical care. From the beginning of operations in November 2024 to the end of July 2025, the clinic had performed over 19,000 visits.