A live feed to the world

When armed Israeli soldiers boarded a flotilla of boats trying to deliver food and medicine to Gaza on Wednesday night, two web developers in Glasgow scrambled to keep track of the vessels as millions of people worldwide tuned in to monitor their fate.

As grainy footage from onboard cameras broadcast the raids live on the flotilla's website, the developers updated the status of the vessels in real-time and posted short videos of each takeover.

The clicks were unprecedented, they said: the site registered 2.5 million visits on Wednesday and 3.5 million on Thursday. "I have never seen numbers like that - not on a website I've ever made," said Lizzie Malcolm, the co-director of Rectangle, a design and software development studio that helped track the vessels on behalf of the organisers.

The Global Sumud Flotilla was seeking to breach an Israeli naval blockade of Gaza, which has been decimated by a two-year Israeli assault. It consisted of more than 40 civilian boats carrying about 500 parliamentarians, lawyers and activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.

The flotilla failed to reach Gaza - the boats were intercepted and escorted to Israel. But over the course of ten days it emerged as the highest-profile opposition to Israel's blockade.

Buoyed by that publicity, another flotilla of 11 boats has already set sail. Through a sophisticated social media campaign, updated boat-tracking technology, savvy website design and grassroots organising, the mission gained massive attention and support, energising a global movement to lift the blockade.

Wednesday's seizure triggered protests in cities across Europe and as far afield as Argentina, Mexico and Pakistan, and drew criticism from politicians and leaders from Colombia to Malaysia