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TEL AVIV HAS NO harbor capable of berthing ocean-going ships. At the very center of its beachfront, a large marina shelters several hundred pleasure craft, mostly sail, but the port itself is far too shallow for commercial tonnage. Just to the south, in the tiny fishing port of Jaffa, lighters could be used to offload cargo from a freighter lying at anchor in deep water, but the ancient harbor, which was the region’s main port until the construction of Haifa in northern Israel and Ashdod in the south, now has neither the fleet of small boats necessary for the job nor the manpower trained to row them out and back.

Instead, the six freighters of the aid flotilla lie at anchor about two thousand feet beyond the breakers. Crew members on four of the ships pass boxes of supplies to others in lifeboats, who pass these on to a long daisy chains of civilians—male, female, young, old, secular and religious—standing waist deep in the surf. From the other two vessels, tankers filled to the gunwales with potable water, civilians shoulder fire hoses leading to tanker trucks on the beach.