Black Lives Matter Grassroots Vehemently Condemns Israel’s Kidnapping of Chris Smalls and 20 Other Freedom Flotilla Humanitarians Attempting to Deliver Food Aid to Gaza and Calls for their Immediate Release.
On Saturday, July 26, 2025, the “Handala” Freedom Flotilla, with an international delegation of 19 humanitarians and 2 journalists, was illegally and unjustly kidnapped by Israel. Among the humanitarians was courageous labor leader, beloved comrade in Black organizing, and founder of the Amazon Labor Union, Chris Smalls.
Chris Smalls, a father, worker, and compassionate organizer, courageously volunteered to board the Handala, which departed from Gallipoli, Italy, on July 20, 2025, to bring baby formula, food, and medical supplies to the Palestinian people in Gaza, who desperately need aid. The vessel was captured by Israel 6 days into its voyage in international waters, just 40 nautical miles away from the starving people in Gaza who are in desperate need of aid.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots was one of the first organizations to pledge our unending solidarity with the Palestinian people in October 2023. For the life of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and as a Black radical organization, we have always understood that the freedom of Black and Palestinian people is intertwined. We vehemently condemn Israel as an apartheid regime in its unrelenting, U.S.-backed genocide against the Palestinian people and prolonged occupation of Palestinian territories.
For more than 21 months, Israeli Occupation Forces have bombed, massacred, severely injured, and forcibly contained Palestinians, decimating generations of entire families. Israel controls all access to Gaza, including humanitarian aid distribution. Palestinians surviving in Gaza are facing unsurvivable conditions as Israel deliberately enacts tactics of mass starvation. Minute by minute, people, including babies and children, are dying from deliberate, forced malnutrition and an engineered famine.
Chris Smalls is our brother in the Black freedom struggle. He has courageously faced seemingly insurmountable enemies, defeating Jeff Bezos – the richest man in the world in 2020, when, as a warehouse worker during the global health pandemic, he formed the Amazon Labor Union. He has become one of the most courageous voices in struggle. Chris was with Black Lives Matter Grassroots in Los Angeles as recently as April 2025 decrying the dangerous rise of police associations as a threat to Black and working class people. He spoke with us to challenge a crowd of tens of thousands to advance a transformative world vision rather than settling for liberalism as a counter to rising fascism.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots demands:
- The immediate release of Chris Smalls and all captured activists.
- The immediate end to the engineered famine and deliberate starving of the people in Gaza.
- An end to labor complicity with genocide.
We are asking all workers and people who believe in working class power to:
- Call the state department and demand the release of all those captured on the Freedom Flotilla.
- Email your Congressmembers asking them to demand the release of our people.
- Actively boycott pro-Israel companies.
- Pass resolutions and make official statements calling for an end to the genocide in Palestine.
- Raise awareness to the deliberate mass starvation, engineered famine, and genocide by making posts, engaging in political education, and disrupting spaces of complicity.
As Black radical organizers, Black Lives Matter Grassroots shares this information to encourage our members and community to take action that reflects the urgency of this time and the challenges that we are facing. We invite all progressive organizations committed to collective liberation to join this vital work.
Source: Black Lives Matter Grassroots
Featured image: Chris Smalls, center, president of the Amazon Labor Union, takes part in a march in solidarity with Palestinians demanding a cease-fire in Gaza, June 8, 2024, in London.
