By Lyndal Rowlands

    The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) says a drone has struck its main ship, the Family Boat, in Tunisia, causing a fire. It says all passengers and crew are safe.
   But the Tunisian National Guard says no drone was detected near the ship, and that the explosion may have occurred after life jackets on board the vessel caught fire.
   The Family Boat is preparing to travel to Gaza along with several other ships trying to break the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian enclave, where a famine has been declared.
   The vessels arrived in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia, on Sunday, the last planned stop on their journey before continuing on to Gaza on Wednesday.
   A number of prominent politicians and activists are participating in the flotilla, including climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and the former mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau. Four Italian parliamentarians are also set to join.

GSF posts video purporting to show incendiary device falling on ship

    The GSF has published footage from another vessel in the flotilla that it said “shows the exact moment the Family Boat was struck from above”.

    The black and white video, posted on Instagram, shows an incendiary device falling on the ship and causing an explosion and a fire.

    This comes after the Tunisian National Guard claimed it had detected no drones in the area at the time of the blast.

    An activist on board the ship, however, said he saw a drone hovering over the vessel before it dropped what he called a bomb.

Activist says he saw drone dropping a bomb on Family Boat

    Miguel Duarte, an activist on board the Family Boat, has told the Middle East Eye (MEE) that he saw a drone hovering above the ship before dropping an explosive on it.

    The testimony comes as the Tunisian National Guard said it had detected no drone near the Family Boat and suggested that the blast may have been caused by a cigarette butt or a lighter setting a life jacket ablaze.

    “I was standing in the back part of the ship, the aft deck, and I heard a drone,” Duarte said in the video posted online by MEE.

    “I saw a drone clearly about 4 metres [13 ft] above my head. I called someone. We were looking at the drone, just above our heads, really,” he recounted.

    The drone stopped close to the two crew members, then moved slowly to the forward deck of the ship, and dropped what was obviously a bomb”, he said.

    “There was a huge explosion, lots of fire, big, big flames… We could have been killed,” Duarte added.