A land-based solidarity convoy named the “Convoy of Steadfastness” has departed from Tunisia toward the Gaza Strip, in a powerful grassroots challenge to Israel’s long-standing blockade and its ongoing war on the Palestinian people. Organised by Tunisia’s Joint Action Coordination for Palestine, the convoy represents a unified civil response to what organisers describe as genocidal acts and the systematic starvation of Gaza’s population.

This symbolic initiative, endorsed by key national bodies including the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), the Bar Association, the League for the Defense of Human Rights, and medical syndicates, carries with it a message of unbreakable solidarity with Palestine. “It is a message of loyalty to the cause, and a demand for the immediate lifting of the blockade that has turned Gaza into an open-air prison for over 18 years,” read the official statement.

The convoy, supported by civil society leaders and human rights advocates, is seen as both a humanitarian gesture and a political act. It aims to shine a light on the catastrophic situation in Gaza, where over two million people are enduring unimaginable hardship, without reliable access to food, water, medicine, or electricity, and where survival has become a daily struggle under siege and bombardment.

The Tunisian coordination body called on Arab governments to facilitate the convoy’s passage and to take a clear stand in support of its mission, criticising the silence of regional and international actors as a moral failure in the face of ongoing atrocities.

As Gaza descends deeper into what UN agencies have labelled the worst humanitarian disaster of our time, Tunisia’s convoy symbolises not just solidarity, but defiance. It carries the hopes of a people who refuse to turn away.