Israel intercepts Gaza-bound aid ship, detaining Greta Thunberg and other prominent activists
CNN — Israel has intercepted a Gaza-bound aid ship carrying Greta Thunberg and other prominent activists, detaining those onboard and taking them to Israel.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said the Israeli military had “attacked” and “unlawfully boarded” the “Madleen,” which was attempting to deliver aid to Gaza – where more than 600 days of war, and an 11-week Israeli blockade of all aid, has pushed the enclave’s 2.1 million people deeper into a hunger crisis.
Climate activist Thunberg and Rima Hassan — a French member of the European Parliament — are among those on the “Madleen.”
“(The vessel) is safely making its way to the shores of Israel. The passengers are expected to return to their home countries,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a post on X early Monday local time.
The foreign ministry posted a video showing members of the “Madleen” crew sitting side by side wearing orange life jackets while a solider offers them bottled water and plastic-wrapped sandwiches. Thunberg can be seen sitting near the front of the group.
The FFC had earlier said the ship had come “under assault in international waters,” in a Telegram post.
“Quadcopters are surrounding the ship, spraying it with a white paint-like substance. Communications are jammed, and disturbing sounds are being played over the radio,” the FFC said. A video posted by Israel’s foreign ministry appeared to show a Navy staffer sending a radio message to the vessel saying the “maritime zone off the coast of Gaza was closed.”
In a video livestreamed from the boat, activist Yasmin Acar showed a white substance on the deck, saying it had been dropped on the vessel. Acar was later heard saying it was affecting her eyes.
The FFC group also posted a video on Telegram, showing members of the crew sitting inside the boat with their hands in the air.
After losing communication with the vessel, the FFC began posting pre-recorded video messages from Thunberg and others onboard. “If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces, or forces that support Israel,” Thunberg said in her video.
In a statement, the FFC said Israel had acted with “total impunity” and that the vessel’s cargo, which included baby formula, food and medical supplies was “confiscated.” Israel said it would transfer the goods to Gaza through humanitarian channels.
“Israel has no legal authority to detain international volunteers aboard the Madleen,” said Huwaida Arraf, human rights attorney and Freedom Flotilla organizer. “This seizure blatantly violates international law and defies the (International Court of Justice’s) binding orders requiring unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza.”
Israel had repeatedly vowed to stop the aid boat from reaching Gaza, and described the ship as a “selfie yacht” carrying “celebrities.”
Crew members of the “Madleen” are seen with their hands in the air as the Israeli military comes aboard, in this image from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
Freedom Flotilla Coalition/Freedom Flotilla Coalition/Teleg
“I have instructed the IDF to ensure that the ‘Madleen’ flotilla does not reach Gaza,” Israeli defense minister Israel Katz said on Sunday.
After the flotilla crew members were detained, Katz said in a post on X that he had instructed the military to screen videos of the Hamas attacks on Israel from October 7, 2023 to the activists upon their arrival at Ashdod Port.
Israel’s foreign ministry said the group “attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity.”
“There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip — they do not involve Instagram selfies,” it added.
In an earlier statement on Monday, the ministry said “unauthorized attempts to breach the blockade are dangerous, unlawful, and undermine ongoing humanitarian efforts.”
Hamas demanded the immediate release of the activists and condemned their detention in a statement, calling the interception “a flagrant violation of international law, and an attack on civilian volunteers acting out of humanitarian motives.”
The “Madleen” is part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an organization that has campaigned against Israel’s blockade of Gaza and tried to break the siege by boat.
The crew, which had publicized the location of the ship with an online tracker, began preparing for the possibility of interception by the Israeli military. On Monday morning, the UK-flagged civilian vessel was north of Egypt in the Mediterranean Sea, slowly approaching the coast of Gaza, but the tracker has since appeared to have stopped.
“We know that it’s a very risky mission and we know that previous experiences with flotillas like this have resulted in attacks, violence and even cases of death,” Thunberg told CNN on Saturday.
Israel imposed a full humanitarian blockade of Gaza on March 2, cutting off food, medical supplies, and other aid to the more than 2 million Palestinians who live in the territory for 11 weeks.
Israel”s Foreign Ministry released this image of Greta Thunberg being offered a plastic-wrapped pastrami sandwich and a bottle of water after those onboard the “Madleen” were detained by Israel”s military.
Israel Foreign Ministry
Faced with growing international pressure, Israel began allowing a trickle of aid in late May. But humanitarian organizations say it is only a fraction of the aid that entered the enclave before the war, and have warned of a worsening humanitarian crisis and the growing risk of widespread famine. A UN-backed report warned in late April that one in five people were facing starvation.
Dozens of Palestinians have been killed over the past week while on their way to try and obtain aid from a new US-backed group commissioned to deliver aid to Gaza, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The group is intended to replace the UN-led system of distributing aid in Gaza. The United Nations has warned that the new distribution mechanism has become a “death trap” for desperate people seeking food in the strip.
Last month, another vessel from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition came under what its organizers claimed was an Israeli drone attack off the coast of Malta in international waters. The group did not provide evidence that the drone was Israeli, while the Israeli military has declined to comment on the alleged attack.
The ship, the “Conscience,” was heading to Malta, where a large contingent of activists, including Thunberg, were due to board before it departed for Gaza.
The later voyage on the “Madleen,” which was intercepted by Israel, departed from Sicily last Friday.
An earlier version of this article mistakenly stated Irish actor Liam Cunningham was onboard the Madleen. The FFC has confirmed he is not onboard.
Source: CNN
Aid to Gaza hangs by a thread amid looting and starvation
Israel’s blockade of Gaza may have been partially lifted – and a new US-backed plan to deliver aid has begun. But there are multiple indications that the plight of Gazans is rapidly worsening.
Restrictions imposed by the Israeli military on aid routes, ongoing airstrikes, a lack of security and the continuous displacement of tens of thousands of people are aggravating an already alarming situation, according to the UN and other aid agencies. The supplies that do get in risk getting looted.
“People in Gaza are starving. This demands the urgent opening of all crossings and allowing unimpeded access for humanitarian organizations to deliver aid at scale, through multiple routes,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its latest assessment.
One woman, Umm Zuhair, who was trying to get food for her family on Sunday at one of newly established aid distribution sites, told CNN: “We’re so hungry that we’re willing to risk getting shot just for a kilo of flour.”
The number of children in Gaza with acute malnutrition is rising, the UN reported Saturday, while a lack of fuel threatens to close hospitals that are still operating.
The Israeli agency handling the inspection of aid going into Gaza, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said Saturday that 350 trucks containing humanitarian aid had entered the Gaza Strip through the Kerem Shalom crossing in the last week – less than 20 per cent of the volume of goods getting into Gaza before the conflict.
And even the aid that gets in frequently does not make it to the most desperate. UN agencies report continuing difficulties with getting distribution routes within Gaza agreed with the Israeli military. OCHA said that out of 16 truckloads ready for distribution last Thursday, five were rejected, including fuel and water, and six failed to reach their destination.
Additionally, the looting of aid convoys in Gaza has risen sharply in recent weeks.
“Operations have faced unprecedented levels of insecurity and a very high risk of looting, with partners reporting that most looting incidents are conducted by desperate civilians,” according to OCHA.
People carry relief supplies from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in central Gaza on Sunday.
Eyad Baba/AFP/Getty Images
Nahed Shehaibar, head of the Private Transport Association in Gaza, said on Saturday that transport of aid had been suspended “for the third consecutive day due to repeated attacks on trucks, including gunfire that has damaged and put several trucks out of service.”
Last week the association reported that one driver was killed and another injured while trying to deliver aid, but Shehaibar said on Sunday that 11 trucks of commercial goods had reached merchants in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza successfully.
The distribution of aid through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US and Israeli-backed aid initiative that started operating late last month, has been dogged by security issues.
On Sunday, GHF said it operated three distribution sites – two in southern Gaza and one in central Gaza – to hand out more than 17,000 boxes of food. In addition, GHF said in its daily update that it gave more than 10,000 meals to community leaders north of Rafah in what the organization called a pilot test of “direct-to-community distribution.”
But many people who went to the Netzarim site in central Gaza left empty-handed.
Mohammad Salim told CNN: “I went at 6 a.m. and found nothing. What’s happening is shameful. I’m holding an empty cardboard box – there’s nothing inside, not even lentils.”
He said some people took more than they needed and complained there was no ID-based distribution system, as operated by the UN. CNN has previously reported that GHF has no system in place to screen aid recipients.
Nader Musleh, who had walked from Al-Mawasi several kilometers away, agreed.
“Some people took five or 10 boxes, and there’s no organization at all,” he said.
Mohammad Abu Akouz was one of several civilians who alleged that some people were injured after coming under Israeli tank fire as they made their way to the site.
An Israeli military official told CNN that Israeli forces fired what they called “warning shots” from an armored vehicle approximately a kilometer from the distribution site. The official said the area is an active war zone.
GHF said it had been unable to open its sites on Saturday, accusing Hamas of making threats against its operations, including against drivers and Palestinian workers. It said the threats had made it impossible to proceed without putting innocent lives at risk.
A driver familiar with the operation, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told CNN on Sunday that Hamas had “threatened the bus drivers responsible for transporting workers to the three American aid distribution points, warning them not to continue the transfers.”
The drivers had been scheduled to move 180 employees to the three distribution sites, he added.
GHF said on Friday that it had distributed more than 140,000 boxes of food, with each box intended to feed a family for half a week. The boxes contain pasta, lentils and cooking oil, among other products. GHF says its goal is to distribute boxes containing enough food for 4.5 million meals each day.
Palestinians pray during a funeral for those who were killed on their way to a Gaza aid hub at the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, Gaza, on June 1.
Abdel Kareem Hana/AP
After last week’s shootings, GHF appealed to people not to arrive at distribution points “before the official opening time or gather near the gates ahead of schedule. This is for your safety and the safety of others.”
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said Saturday in a post on X that gathering outside distribution centers outside of announced hours was “strictly prohibited,” and warned that the areas around the aid hubs were closed military zones between 6 p.m. (11 a.m. ET) and 6 a.m. (11 p.m. ET).
The UN says that the use of the Israeli and American-backed GHF has militarized aid distribution and is inadequate for the huge task of feeding families in Gaza. GHF has no presence in northern Gaza.
In its latest assessment, OCHA said that 90 per cent of families in Gaza lack the cash needed to buy what little food remains available in markets. “Meat, dairy, vegetables and fruit are nearly absent from people’s diets,” it said.
Half of the community kitchens in Gaza have been forced to stop cooking due to lack of supplies or displacement orders, according to OCHA.
The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) – the main agency for supplying aid in Gaza – said Saturday that a nutrition study had found that the percentage of children under 5 suffering from acute malnutrition had risen from 4.7% in the first half of May to 5.8% in the second half of the month.
UNRWA said the number of children forced to fend for themselves had pushed an increasing number into “dangerous survival strategies. Children are reported working on the streets, participating in looting or gathering within large crowds in search of food supplies at insecure distribution points.”
It’s not just food that is running chronically short.
Dr. Mohamed Abu Salmiya, director of Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza, told CNN on Sunday that the few hospitals in Gaza still operating “will completely shut down within two days if fuel does not enter.”
He added that “a large number of the wounded cannot be treated due to the lack of blood supplies and medical equipment,” and medical staff faced difficult choices about which patients to save.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health said Sunday that Al-Shifa Hospital and the Baptist Ahli Hospital, both in northern Gaza, were at risk of shutting down service within 24 hours. It said that would mean the collapse of what remains of the healthcare system in Gaza City.
In the south, the Health Ministry said the Nasser Medical Complex was operating on a limited fuel supply that will last no more than two days.
Source: CNN