Israel orders military to stop Gaza-bound yacht carrying Greta Thunberg
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz told the military on Sunday to stop a charity boat carrying activists including Sweden's Greta Thunberg who are planning to defy an Israeli blockade and reach Gaza.
Operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), the British-flagged Madleen yacht set sail from Sicily on June 6 and is now off the Egyptian coast, heading slowly towards the Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel.
'I instructed the IDF to act so that the Madleen ... does not reach Gaza,' Katz said in a statement.
'To the antisemitic Greta and her Hamas-propaganda-spouting friends, I say clearly: You'd better turn back, because you will not reach Gaza.'
Climate activist Thunberg said she joined the Madleen crew to 'challenge Israel's illegal siege and escalating war crimes' in Gaza and highlight the urgent need for humanitarian aid. She has rejected previous Israeli accusations of anti-Semitism.
Israel went to war with Hamas in October 2023 after the Islamist militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.
More than 54,000 Palestinians have died during the ongoing Israeli assault, according to Gaza health authorities, with much of the Palestinian territory reduced to rubble. The UN has warned that most of Gaza's 2.3-million population is at risk of famine.
Katz said the blockade was essential to Israel's national security as it seeks to eliminate Hamas.
'Israel will not allow anyone to break the naval blockade on Gaza, whose primary purpose is to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas,' he said.
The Madleen is carrying a symbolic quantity of aid, including rice and baby formula, the FFC has said.
FFC press officer Hay Sha Wiya said on Sunday the boat was some 160 nautical miles (296km) from Gaza. 'We are preparing for the possibility of interception,' she said.
Besides Thunberg, there are 11 other crew members aboard, including Rima Hassan, a French member of the European parliament.
Israeli media have reported that the military plans to intercept the yacht before it reaches Gaza and escort it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The crew would then be deported.
In 2010, Israeli commandos killed 10 people when they boarded a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, that was leading a small flotilla towards Gaza.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
IOL News
4 hours ago
- IOL News
From Auschwitz to Gaza: The modern-day concentration camp
Roberto Amaral GAZA has been transformed into the largest open-air concentration camp ever known to humanity. An unimaginable 'death row' where the Palestinian people, more than half of whom are children, await their sentence without reprieve, dictated by the frighteningly belligerent and perverse Luciferian enemy. And, to the same extent, cowardly. For months, the Zionist government of Israel has been promoting, under the blind eyes of the cynical international community, an open ethnic cleansing. In this true 'concentration and extermination camp,' the wretches do not walk on their own two feet to the gas chambers to which the victims of Nazism were condemned: they are torn apart by the bombs of the ultra-modern army of the State of Israel, founded in 1947 under the auspices of the UN precisely to guarantee a home for the people who survived the Holocaust. Like the Jews of yesterday, today's Palestinians are incapable of defending themselves; but a powerful army – supersonic planes, drones, missiles, tanks and all sorts of artillery – is raining bombs down on them (as if hunger, vilification and theft of their lands were not enough). This is a genocide carried out in the open and in the shadow of the moral iniquity of an international community that watches everything impassively. Unlike the prisoners of the Auschwitz concentration camp, today's victims cannot dream of liberation from the Red Army, which in January 1945 advanced on Poland on its way to Berlin. No one comes to their aid. They are left 'to their own devices,' which has turned out to be a cruel fate. Those who escape the siege of Gaza are already condemned to no future: without a homeland or land, they will have nowhere to go. They are poor, and do not have a chain of protection spread throughout the world; they are the new condemned of the earth. Without 'promised salvation', they have been condemned to exile, they will wander, their dreams shattered, and their most modest hopes lost. In 1947, Palestine, then occupied by 600,000 Jews and 1.3 million Arabs (of whom around 700,000 Palestinians were expelled), was to be divided up so that two states could be established, one Jewish (the future State of Israel) and the other Arab. The first was established, and we know what it is today. The other, 78 years later, is awaiting international recognition, which has been denied. The US and its cohort: the United Kingdom, Germany and most of the European Union are leading the refusal. Israel occupies and blockades the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, where it has been lying and rolling since the 1967 invasion, during the 'Six-Day War'. The Palestinians of Gaza are a captive people in an occupied country waiting to be destroyed, hermetically blockaded, deprived of fuel, electricity, water, food and medicine, with their civil infrastructure destroyed, schools demolished and hospitals at the mercy of bombings. Estimates speak of somewhere between 35 and 45 thousand civilian victims. More than 15 thousand children have already died, and the UN warns that more, more than 15 thousand babies, could still die if the Israeli government continues to block the entry of food and medicine. While the international community remains silent and Zionism applauds war crimes, Ehud Olmert, former Prime Minister of Israel (2006-2009), defines Zionist policy as 'perverse, malicious and irresponsible'. We must listen to him: 'Netanyahu typically tries to obscure the kind of orders he is giving to avoid legal and criminal responsibility in due course. But some of his lackeys say it openly: 'Yes, we are going to starve Gaza.'' He charges: 'Israel is committing war crimes.'
TimesLIVE
4 hours ago
- TimesLIVE
Israel orders military to stop Gaza-bound yacht carrying Greta Thunberg
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz told the military on Sunday to stop a charity boat carrying activists including Sweden's Greta Thunberg who are planning to defy an Israeli blockade and reach Gaza. Operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), the British-flagged Madleen yacht set sail from Sicily on June 6 and is now off the Egyptian coast, heading slowly towards the Gaza Strip, which is besieged by Israel. 'I instructed the IDF to act so that the Madleen ... does not reach Gaza,' Katz said in a statement. 'To the antisemitic Greta and her Hamas-propaganda-spouting friends, I say clearly: You'd better turn back, because you will not reach Gaza.' Climate activist Thunberg said she joined the Madleen crew to 'challenge Israel's illegal siege and escalating war crimes' in Gaza and highlight the urgent need for humanitarian aid. She has rejected previous Israeli accusations of anti-Semitism. Israel went to war with Hamas in October 2023 after the Islamist militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies. More than 54,000 Palestinians have died during the ongoing Israeli assault, according to Gaza health authorities, with much of the Palestinian territory reduced to rubble. The UN has warned that most of Gaza's 2.3-million population is at risk of famine. Katz said the blockade was essential to Israel's national security as it seeks to eliminate Hamas. 'Israel will not allow anyone to break the naval blockade on Gaza, whose primary purpose is to prevent the transfer of weapons to Hamas,' he said. The Madleen is carrying a symbolic quantity of aid, including rice and baby formula, the FFC has said. FFC press officer Hay Sha Wiya said on Sunday the boat was some 160 nautical miles (296km) from Gaza. 'We are preparing for the possibility of interception,' she said. Besides Thunberg, there are 11 other crew members aboard, including Rima Hassan, a French member of the European parliament. Israeli media have reported that the military plans to intercept the yacht before it reaches Gaza and escort it to the Israeli port of Ashdod. The crew would then be deported. In 2010, Israeli commandos killed 10 people when they boarded a Turkish ship, the Mavi Marmara, that was leading a small flotilla towards Gaza.
IOL News
10 hours ago
- IOL News
ANCYL KZN criticises inclusion of Israel athletes in 2025 Comrades Marathon
Citing apartheid and genocide allegations, ANCYL demands the removal of six Israeli runners from the Comrades Marathon, urging broader support against sportswashing and symbolic normalisation of Israel. The African National Congress Youth League (ANCYL) in KwaZulu-Natal has condemned the Comrades Marathon Association's (CMA) decision to allow Israeli athletes to participate in the 2025 Comrades Marathon. ANCYL provincial spokesperson, Sanele Hlongwa, described the move as a 'profound sense of betrayal,' urging the CMA to reconsider what he sees as a decision that 'undermines the very principles this race has come to embody — unity, sacrifice, and justice.' In a statement, the Youth League highlighted that the participation of athletes representing Israel contradicts South Africa's long-standing commitment to international solidarity and human rights, particularly regarding the Palestinian struggle. 'This decision stands in stark contradiction to South Africa's principled stance on international justice and solidarity, especially about the ongoing oppression of the Palestinian people under occupation and apartheid,' the statement read.
