Scope of military and energy supplies

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 Brazil, Nigeria and Gabon, and those that pass through Turkey along the BTC pipeline.
• The most complicit vessels of Israel’s shipping company ZIM. (As Israel’s flagship shupping 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.)

Once the first iteration of the campaign has been implemented, the campaign will expand its scope as follows:

• Transhipments in the Mediterranean region of containers that contain weapons-parts and military-supplies including dual use items.
• Military supplies from the United Kingdom, Germany and other European countries.
• Coal supplies from Russia through the Black Sea.

The efforts to ensure effective campaigning based on the blocklist approach complement 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 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 patterns-based vessel blocklist approach

The NHG campaign is premised on a ‘vessel blocklist’ approach for coordinating actions in the Mediterranean region. This means channelling action towards vessels (as well as their  owners/operators/flags and, where possible, charters/insurers) that are repeatedly involved in the supply of military and energy supplies to Israel.

This blocklist serves as a Mediterranean-wide list to ensure that all workers, state and non-state actors in the region are pressured to deny harbour to vessels in this genocide fleet. In specific ports, local groups will organise around the operations of the blocklist vessels most relevant to their context. We support groups to develop local strategies through a mapping of the port operations and of key actors (political, legal, state-based) aiding the operations of the blocklist vessels.

The rationale for the blocklist is that it helps overcome several operational issues that have been major challenges for those organizing to prevent illegal maritime transfers to Israel.

• Provides a list of ships which have, repeatedly and undoubtedly, 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 forecloses the possibility of mobilising consistently.
• This clarity provides 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.
• The list also makes a tangible, realistic demand of port authorities, unions and states, which is directed at the main offenders supplying the Israeli war machine.
• The list is flexible, and ships can be removed or added as supply chains develop, but it provides a central focus for a coherent maritime campaign.

By developing a targeted intervention in key ports and in key supply lines, the NHG campaign will assist in expanding interventions that are wider than the port level. These include legal cases to sue owners and operators, advocacy with flag states to uphold their obligations under international law, media and shareholder campaigns to target financial investors of key owners, operators and suppliers and pressuring insurers and P&I clubs to withdraw insurance.