© Getty ImagesA ship, Dignité, flying the French flag with six people onboard sails off the coast of the French Mediterranean island of Corsica on June 25, 2011 to join the new pro-Palestinian aid flotilla.
The ship flying the French flag named Dignité (Dignity) headed for the coastal waters of Greece on Saturday to join up with the rest of the participants in the flotilla.
The entire fleet will sail for Gaza next week from various Mediterranean ports, French coordinator Julien Rivoire told AFP.
Ships, including two freighters carrying medical supplies "should reach the port of Gaza at the end of next week," he added.
Activists from more than 30 countries plan to sail aboard the ships to the Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian assistance to the besieged people of Gaza in the near future.
The Israeli Navy has already declared that it will not allow the new flotilla to break the blockade on the impoverished Gaza Strip.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has expressed her strong opposition to the second Freedom Flotilla, claiming that it is both a 'provoking act' and 'unnecessary.'
"We do not believe that the flotilla is a necessary or useful effort to try to assist the people of Gaza," Clinton said.
Israeli Navy head Vice Admiral Eliezer Marom had earlier called on world leaders to "impose all their authority to prevent the departure of this needless, provocative flotilla."
On May 31, 2010, Israeli commandos attacked the first Freedom Flotilla in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, killing nine Turkish citizens on board the Turkish-flagged M.V. Mavi Marmara and injuring about 50 other people who were part of the team on the six-ship convoy.
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