Controversial Swiss Activist Advises Gaza Aid Flotilla

A con­tro­ver­sial fig­ure accused of f Hamas con­nec­tions is advis­ing Switzerland’s Gaza flotil­la mis­sion. On August 29, 2025, Swiss Radio and Tele­vi­sion report­ed that Anouar Ghar­bi, pre­vi­ous­ly described as “Hamas’s man in Switzer­land,” serves as an advi­sor to the “Waves of Free­dom Switzer­land” orga­ni­za­tion plan­ning to deliv­er human­i­tar­i­an aid to Gaza by sea. The arti­cle begins:

The man remains dis­creet. In front, three activists speak to jour­nal­ists, pre­sent­ing their plans to bring relief sup­plies to Gaza with sev­er­al ships and draw atten­tion to the cat­a­stroph­ic sit­u­a­tion. The man in the back­ground in mid-August in Gene­va is Anouar Ghar­bi. The name comes up when search­ing for traces of Hamas in Switzer­land. “Hamas’s man in Switzer­land,” head­lined Son­ntagsZeitung. The alle­ga­tions go back over twen­ty years.

Read more: https://www.srf.ch/news/international/schiffe-fuer-palaestina-umstrittener-schweizer-beraet-gaza-

Key Points

• Swiss-Pales­tin­ian activist Anouar Ghar­bi, with a his­to­ry of involve­ment in orga­ni­za­tions linked to Hamas and pre­vi­ous­ly sanc­tioned by the US, is advis­ing a Swiss ini­tia­tive plan­ning a human­i­tar­i­an flotil­la to Gaza.
• The “Waves of Free­dom Switzer­land” project empha­sizes Gharbi’s role is con­sul­ta­tive and based on his expe­ri­ence with pre­vi­ous flotil­las, not a for­mal lead­er­ship position.
• Gharbi’s past as a board mem­ber of a Gene­va-based NGO clas­si­fied by the US as a Hamas sup­port­er, and his pub­lic state­ments express­ing sym­pa­thy for “resis­tance,” have sparked con­tro­ver­sy and media scrutiny.
• The ini­tia­tive aims to col­lect dona­tions, pur­chase boats, and—in coop­er­a­tion with an inter­na­tion­al coalition—attempt a non-vio­lent human­i­tar­i­an mis­sion to break the Gaza block­ade and high­light the plight of Palestinians.

Gaza Flotilla Activism Under Scrutiny

Anouar Ghar­bi, one­time For­eign Affairs Advis­er to the Tunisian pres­i­dent, has long-stand­ing ties to pro-Pales­tin­ian and Islamist net­works. He co-found­ed the Euro­pean Cam­paign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), coor­di­nat­ed the 2nd Gaza Flotil­la, and pre­vi­ous­ly served as an offi­cer of Switzerland’s Asso­ci­a­tion de Sec­ours Pales­tinien (part of Youssef Qaradawi’s Union of Good, which funds Hamas). He also found­ed the NGO Droit pour Tous, pre­sent­ed as a human rights group but func­tion­ing main­ly as a Pales­tin­ian advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tion, and linked to the 2010 Gaza Flotil­la con­fronta­tion with Israel.

Gaza flotil­las, launched by orga­ni­za­tions such as the Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion, have become a high-pro­file instru­ment of Euro­pean pro-Pales­tin­ian activism, blend­ing human­i­tar­i­an objec­tives with polit­i­cal mes­sag­ing and attract­ing inter­na­tion­al fig­ures, includ­ing Gre­ta Thun­berg. Recent mis­sions, such as the Mediter­ranean voy­age of the Recent mis­sions, such as the Mediter­ranean voy­age of the Han­dala, reflect a strat­e­gy to spot­light the Gaza block­ade and ral­ly glob­al atten­tion, but they also draw scruti­ny over the movement’s ide­o­log­i­cal and oper­a­tional connections—most notably with Hamas.

The 2025 Madleen flotil­la, which saw Gre­ta Thun­berg among its activists flotil­la, which saw Gre­ta Thun­berg among its activists, was orga­nized in sig­nif­i­cant part by British Pales­tin­ian Zaher Birawi, a fig­ure described by Israeli and British offi­cials as a Hamas oper­a­tive and pre­vi­ous­ly des­ig­nat­ed as an orga­niz­er of Hamas-linked cam­paigns in the UK. Birawi’s lead­er­ship of the EuroPal Forum and his long asso­ci­a­tion with the Free­dom Flotil­la Coalition’s Euro­pean seg­ments, includ­ing the Euro­pean Cam­paign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG), demon­strates how such ini­tia­tives serve as plat­forms for broad­er Islamist influ­ence, inter­sect­ing with Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood net­works and lever­ag­ing dias­po­ra activism to reframe the Pales­tin­ian issue in Euro­pean pub­lic discourse.

The involve­ment of groups like the Turk­ish IHH, also his­tor­i­cal­ly con­nect­ed to Hamas financ­ing, fur­ther under­scores the transna­tion­al nature of the flotil­la phe­nom­e­non and its poten­tial to ampli­fy Islamist polit­i­cal agen­das under the ban­ner of human rights advo­ca­cy. Echo­ing these con­cerns, ana­lysts and aca­d­e­m­ic observers note that the oper­a­tional and finan­cial struc­tures behind the flotil­las are fre­quent­ly enmeshed in net­works that sup­port or sym­pa­thize with Hamas, rais­ing ques­tions about the appro­pri­ate­ness of such col­lab­o­ra­tions for Euro­pean civ­il soci­ety actors.

Exter­nal References:

• Gaza-bound Glob­al Sumud Flotil­la pre­pares to set off from Spain

• Flotil­la leaves Barcelona in biggest attempt yet to break Israeli block­ade of Gaza

• Euro­pean Hamas oper­a­tive behind Gaza flotil­la – i24News

• Lon­don-based Hamas oper­a­tive linked with flotil­la – Jerusalem Post

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.