No Harbour for Genocide is a campaign aimed at stopping in the maritime transfers of military and energy supplies to Israel in the Mediterranean. The campaign is a coordination of actions taken by local groups in key ports across the Mediterranean.

The campaign is focussed on the supply chains that account for the largest and most strategic provisioning of military equipment and energy supplies by sea to Israel. Its encompasses the supply chains which are straightforward to track and thus mobilise around due to the certainty of the supply chain’s complicity and the role of maritime actors in the ongoing genocide, apartheid, and the sustenance of illegal occupation. The mobilisation for the campaign is premised on a ‘pattern-based vessel blocklist’ approach which targets actors that are most complicit in the transport of these supplies: this includes cargo vessels, their operators, owners, charters, flags and insurers, their most frequent ports of call and support and supply companies in ports.

Nearly two years into Israel’s genocide, most states continue to provide unconditional support to Israel’s mass slaughter of Palestinians. It has long been evident that grassroots campaigns are needed to cut off the supply of weapons and energy to Israel, to implement an arms and energy embargo from below given the complicity of states.

Up to 95% of Israel’s imports and exports are handled via sea. Maritime transfers are a particularly important point of intervention as they constitute a chokepoint in the supply chain to Israel’s genocidal regime, and open up scope for trade unionists, activists, human rights organisations and port authorities to take action.

There is a long history of trade union, worker and port-based actions to end complicity in genocidal and colonial violence. You can learn more about this history on the Timeline section of the website

A ‘patterns-based blocklist’ approach maps the key chokepoints for the maritime transfers in the Mediterranean region, thus funnelling a wide range of strategies towards a strategic group of actors and locations. This approach underpins the campaign strategy.

By focussing on a ‘vessel blocklist’ the campaign channels action towards key vessels (including their owners/operators/flags and where possible charters/insurers) that repeatedly undertake the supply of military and energy supplies to Israel. Through developing a ‘patterns-based’ intervention, the campaign strategically targets actions in key ports which have a history of providing harbour services and logistical support to the blocklist vessels.

The patterns-based blocklist approach helps to overcome many of the shortcomings of the previous campaigns related to maritime transfers. 

First, it provides a list of the operational patterns of a strategic but limited number of vessels that are key to military and energy supplies to Israel, thus allowing for a coordinated Mediterranean-wide campaign to be organised. 

Second, by detailing the role of each port in enabling and supporting the transfers of military and energy supplies, it facilitates the development of localised interventions, suited to the local/national context. 

Third, it intervenes in the most materially and geopolitically significant military and energy supply routes which cannot be immediately replaced. Likewise, it also intervenes in the key vessels and their maritime infrastructures that undertake these supplies, some of which cannot be immediately replaced.

In the context of the ongoing genocide, the approach is an effective way to organise for arms, energy and trade embargoes and other anti-normalisation campaigns.

In its launch iteration, the campaign focuses on:

• Military supplies from the US that are undertaken in bulk form or on dedicated shipments under the Maritime or Tanker Security Programs.

• Coal supplies from Colombia and South Africa.

• Crude oil and petrochemical supplies from the BTC pipeline in Turkey, Brazil, Nigeria and Gabon.
• The most complicit vessels of Israel’s shipping company ZIM. (As Israel’s flagship company explicitly dedicated to providing Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and illegal occupation, with all the necessary supplies, all ZIM vessels should be barred from ports and services. Listing the most complicit ones follows an incremental approach.)

The blocklist approach allows for:

• Providing a list of ships which have, undoubtedly and repeatedly, transported military, energy and dual-use products as dedicated cargo to Israel. This helps overcome the issue of focussing only on containerised shipping which makes certain goods difficult to identify, introducing an element of uncertainty that makes mobilisation more difficult.

• Providing states, unions and port authorities with a legal rationale, under a range of international instruments, for why they can intervene to prevent these ships from docking and being serviced.

• Making tangible, realistic demands of states, unions and port authorities, which is directed at the main offenders.

• Taking a flexible approach where relevant ships and their operations infrastructures can be removed or added as supply chains develop or shift, while nonetheless providing a central focus to the campaign.

The No Harbour for Genocide campaign also calls for port-based actions that disrupt and delay the operational and cargo operations of vessels complicit in the Israeli war machine’s supply chain.

However, it also aims to expanding interventions beyond the vessel/port level. These include: legal cases to sue owners/operators; advocacy with flag states for their obligations under international law; media and shareholder campaigns to target financial investors of key owners/operators/suppliers and  pressuring insurers and P&I clubs to withdraw insurance – all focused on the list of blacklisted vessels.

These are key elements of the wider efforts to stop illegal maritime transfers to/from Israel. These also include, among others,: 

• The mobilization against and blocking of vessels, which are not on the blacklist, that are suspected of carrying military and dual use supplies to Israel.
• Campaigning to hold shipping and insurance companies accountable and end their complicity.
• The campaign to boycott and ban Israel’s shipping company ZIM
• Pressuring port and flag states to implement general policies that allow them to uphold their obligations under international law. 

These efforts span the globe, from Taiwan to Chile. 

See more here.

The efforts to end maritime military and dual-use transfers are a crucial part of the broader campaign to end all military relations with Israel, including imports, exports, transfers, joint exercises and military cooperation, joint research and more. For more see here.

Local groups consisting of activists, lawyers, maritime experts, trade unions, BDS and community organisations have been active in ports across the Mediterranean. Being familiar with their local circumstance, they are best suited to developing an appropriate and strategic approach for their context, as well as engaging in long-term outreach to effectively mobilise against these maritime transfers.

The legal basis for targeting these vessels and their supporting infrastructure is underpinned by their breaches of legal obligations deriving from a number of international conventions, including the International Convention on the Law of the Sea.  

According to the authoritative legal opinion by ASCOMARE, an international think-tank providing legal consultancy to governments, private institutions and NGOs, governments need to act now to stop their complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation, apartheid and genocide, including complicity related to maritime transfers. 

Coastal states must take necessary action within their territorial seas, including interrupting or suspending passage, against vessels carrying military supplies or other cargo that assists Israel in its illegal occupation, apartheid, genocide, or other violations of fundamental principles (peremptory norms) of international law, such as the right to self-determination of peoples and the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force.

In order to stop the vessel’s passage through its seas and the vessel’s complicity in Israeli atrocity crimes (war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide), coastal state authorities can stop or board the vessel, redirect its passage, order it to leave the territorial sea, or employ a proportionate and legal degree of force, if warranted.

States have jurisdiction over vessels flying their flag, even when those vessels operate within the waters of another State. They have to exercise control and enforce international law upon them. 

Flag states have to (1) adopt appropriate laws or regulations to ban vessels illegally transferring cargo that supports Israel’s commission of international crimes from carrying their flag (2) establish administrative frameworks and enforcement mechanisms (3) ensure continuous oversight, and (4) take prompt action when they are informed of the risk of non-compliance with these rules. 

If coastal states or flag states fail to implement these measures, they themselves should be held accountable for violating international law.

States further have the legal obligation to:

• Take steps to prevent trade that assist in Israel’s violations of international law, including the maintenance of unlawful occupation, and/or Israel’s breaches of its obligations under the Genocide and Apartheid Conventions.  
• Take steps to ensure that their nationals, and companies and entities under their jurisdiction, as well as their authorities, do not provide aid or assistance that assist in Israel’s violations of international law, including the maintenance of unlawful occupation, and/or Israel’s breaches of its obligations under the Genocide and Apartheid Conventions.
• Implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

These obligations are confirmed by the ICJ advisory opinions of July 9 2004, July 19 2024, and the ICJ decisions on preliminary measures in South Africa’s case regarding Israel’s violation of the Genocide Convention, as well as the Genocide Convention and the Convention against Apartheid.The UN General Assembly Resolution A/ES-10/L.31 further mandates states to take the corresponding action.