We arrived in Tunisia.

We were kept waiting at the airport for 15 hours without water, food, or even tea; we were interrogated. I said to myself, I hope difficult beginnings lead to beautiful endings.

Finally, we reached the Freedom Flotilla ship, filled with hope. After a difficult journey, three days later, we anchored off the coast of Malta, in international waters.

It was 12:15 a.m.

I got ready and lay down in my bed, scrolling through my phone. Suddenly, there was an explosion.

I was startled. A strange fear gripped my heart.

It was strange because we were on a ship…

I wondered, Could something have fallen, broken, or shattered? Did something happen to the generator? Was there a malfunction in the electrical system?

As a thousand possibilities raced through my mind, I rushed outside.

Two members of the ship’s crew were running around in panic, shouting, “Gather everyone at the back of the ship!”

My fear became even more intense. Because these were the people responsible for the technical and generator systems.

Time suddenly seemed to speed up. It felt as though my mind had stopped.

I was trying to understand what was happening, but I couldn’t make sense of anything. I was simply following them.

We reached the back of the ship.

“A drone,” someone said. At first, I couldn’t process it.

“They’re going to hit us,” he said. I still couldn’t comprehend it.

“Turn off the lights!” he said. I still thought there was some kind of electrical problem.

Just then, there was a second explosion.

That was the moment when fear reached its peak. It was the fear of uncertainty…

“Brother, what’s happening?” I asked.

“They’re attacking us with drones!” he said.

At that moment, I looked around. I saw two drones in the sky.

I grabbed my phone. That fear, anxiety, excitement…

Amid emotions I cannot describe, I started recording a video.

What I experienced lasted only two minutes.

But those two minutes were a small glimpse of what the people of Gaza — children, women, girls, young people, and the elderly — had been enduring for 17 months.

I experienced it for only two minutes.

They have been living through it for a century.

And I experienced it 1,500 miles away from Gaza, off the coast of Malta, in international waters.

In a place where we believed the law existed…

It never even crossed my mind that Israel would do something like this. But it did.

This was an act of terror.

What state are the people of Gaza in right now? How brutally have they been killed, and how brutally are they still being killed…

With these thoughts, I felt ashamed of myself.

But knowing that I had boarded this ship and was standing alongside them gave me tremendous courage.

Ruthless, murderous, Zionist Israel; go to hell!

While you think you are frightening us, you are actually giving us courage!