THE Freedom Flotilla Coalition's (FFC) latest aid ship heading for Gaza temporarily lost its signal and was "surrounded by drones".
On Thursday evening, the FFC claimed the Handala had its signals "jammed" and that it had lost all contact with the crew.
The ship is heading towards Gaza, where it hopes to deliver much needed humanitarian aid.
A statement from the FFC shortly after 8.30pm on Thursday said: "All communications with the Handala's crew have been jammed.
"We lost all contact with our crew, and there are multiple drones near the vessel."
On Friday morning, the FFC provided an update and said contact had been lost for around two hours and that it was most likely due to a global outage of Starlink satellites.
"Connection has now been re-established. Handala is continuing its mission and is currently less than 349 nautical miles form Gaza," the FFC said.
The coalition added that a number of drones remained in the vicinity.
The Handala left its final stop before Gaza on July 20, and is expected to reach Gaza in a number of days if it is not intercepted.
The ship is carrying 21 people on board, comprised of 19 citizens and two Al Jazeera journalists.
Among those on board Sergio Toribio, a Spanish engineer and environmental activist who was also part of the Madleen crew.
There are several politicians and human rights activists on board, as well as British-French citizen Chloe Fiona Ludden, a former UN staff member and scientist.
The crew members come from 11 different countries, although some hold dual citizenship: France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Morocco, Palestine, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and Australia.
It comes just weeks after the FFC's last aid ship, the Madleen, was intercepted by Israel while sailing in international waters.
The Madleen was carrying 12 people onboard, including Swedish climate and social justice campaigner Greta Thunberg and French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan.
The ship was seized by Israeli forces on June 9 and the crew were taken to Israel, where they were detained before eventually being deported.
