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Israeli troops take control of Gaza aid boat carrying activists including Greta Thunberg

Israeli troops take control of Gaza aid boat carrying activists including Greta Thunberg

The Journal8 hours ago

ISRAEL HAS INTERCEPTED a Gaza-bound aid boat, preventing the activists onboard, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The Madleen departed from Italy on 1 June aiming to bring awareness to food shortages in Gaza, which the United Nations has called the 'hungriest place on Earth'.
After 21 months of war, the UN has warned the territory's entire population is at risk of famine.
AFP lost contact with the Madleen early this morning.
At around 3:02 am CET (00:02 Irish time), Israeli forces 'forcibly intercepted' the vessel in international waters as it was approaching Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement.
'If you see this video we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters,' Thunberg said in a pre-recorded video shared by the coalition.
SOS! the volunteers on 'Madleen' have been kidnapped by Israeli forces.
Greta Thunberg is a Swedish citizen.
Pressure their foreign ministries and help us keep them safe!
Web:
https://t.co/uCGmx8sn8j
X :
@SweMFA
FB :
@SweMFA
IG : swedishmfa
#AllEyesOnMadeleen
pic.twitter.com/76Myrg2Bnz
— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla)
June 9, 2025
The Palestinian group Hamas condemned the diversion, saying in a statement the boat was being taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
The Israeli government had vowed to prevent the 'unauthorised' ship from breaching the naval blockade of Gaza, urging it to turn back.
Yesterday, Defence Minister Israel Katz said the blockade, in place since years before the Israel-Hamas war, was needed to prevent Palestinian militants from importing weapons.
After diverting the boat, Israel's foreign ministry posted a picture of the activists all in orange life jackets being offered water and sandwiches.
'All the passengers of the 'selfie yacht' are safe and unharmed,' the ministry wrote on social media, adding that it expected the activists to return to their home countries.
'The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the 'celebrities' will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,' it added.
All the passengers of the 'selfie yacht' are safe and unharmed. They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over.
pic.twitter.com/tLZZYcspJO
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA)
June 9, 2025
Israel is facing mounting international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.
It recently allowed humanitarian deliveries to resume after barring them for more than two months and began working with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).
But humanitarian agencies have criticised the GHF and the United Nations refuses to work with it, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality.
Dozens of people have been killed near GHF distribution points since late May, according to Gaza's civil defence agency.
It said Israeli attacks killed at least 10 people on Sunday, including five civilians hit by gunfire near an aid distribution centre.
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'Risked their lives' for food
Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal and witnesses said the civilians had been heading to a site west of Rafah, in southern Gaza, run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
Witness Abdallah Nour al-Din told AFP that 'people started gathering in the Al-Alam area of Rafah' in the early morning.
'After about an hour and a half, hundreds moved toward the site and the army opened fire,' he said.
The Israeli military said it fired on people who 'continued advancing in a way that endangered the soldiers' despite warnings.
The GHF said in a statement there had been no incidents 'at any of our three sites' on Sunday.
Outside Nasser Hospital, where the emergency workers brought the casualties, AFPTV footage showed mourners crying over blood-stained body bags.
'I can't see you like this,' said Lin al-Daghma by her father's body.
She spoke of the struggle to access food aid after the two-months Israeli blockade, despite the recent easing.
At a charity kitchen in Gaza City, displaced Palestinian Umm Ghassan told AFP she had been unable to collect aid from a GHF site 'because there were so many people, and there was a lot of shooting. I was afraid to go in, but there were people who risked their lives for their children and families'.
Sinwar
Also on Sunday, the Israeli military said it had located and identified the body of Mohammed Sinwar, presumed Hamas leader in Gaza, in an 'underground tunnel route beneath the European Hospital in Khan Yunis', in southern Gaza.
The military, which until Sunday had not confirmed his death, said Israeli forces killed Sinwar on 13 May.
Sinwar was the younger brother of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, accused by Israel of masterminding the 2023 attack that triggered the war.
The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians.
The health ministry in Gaza says at least 54,880 people, the majority civilians, have been killed in the territory since the start of the war.
The UN considers these figures reliable.
After the deaths of several Hamas leaders, Mohammed Sinwar was thought to be at the heart of decisions on indirect negotiations with Israel.
The military said that alongside Sinwar's body, forces had found 'additional intelligence' at the Khan Yunis site 'underneath the hospital, right under the emergency room'.
Experts said he likely took over as the head of Hamas's armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, after its leader Mohammed Deif was killed by Israel.
The Palestinian group has remained tight-lipped over the names of its top ranks.
-
© AFP 2025

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Six dead after Israeli forces and allies fired at crowd near Gaza aid site
Six dead after Israeli forces and allies fired at crowd near Gaza aid site

Irish Examiner

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Six dead after Israeli forces and allies fired at crowd near Gaza aid site

Palestinians say Israeli forces and allied local gunmen fired toward a crowd heading to an Israeli and US supported food distribution centre in the Gaza Strip. Gaza's Health Ministry said six people were killed in the reported attack early on Monday. The gunmen appeared to be allied with the Israeli military, operating in close proximity to troops and retreating into an Israeli military zone in the southern city of Rafah after the crowd hurled stones at them, witnesses said. Israeli army vehicles transport a group of soldiers and journalists inside the southern Gaza Strip (Ohad Zwigenberg/AP) The Israeli military did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Israel recently acknowledged supporting local armed groups opposed to Hamas. – The latest in a string of shootings It was the latest in a number of shootings that have killed at least 127 people and wounded hundreds since the rollout of a new food distribution system, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Israel and the US say the new system is designed to circumvent Hamas, but it has been rejected by the UN and major aid groups. Experts have meanwhile warned that Israel's blockade and its ongoing military campaign have put Gaza at risk of famine. Palestinians say Israeli forces have repeatedly fired toward crowds heading to the food centres since they opened last month. In previous instances, the Israeli military has said it fired warning shots at people who approached its forces near the centres, which are in military zones off limits to independent media. The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, the Israeli and US supported private contractor running the sites, says there has been no violence in or around the centres themselves. But GHF repeatedly warns would-be food recipients that stepping off the road designated by the military for people to reach the centres represents 'a great danger'. Palestinians carry bags containing food and humanitarian aid packages delivered by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (Abdel Kareem Hana/AP) It paused delivery at its three distribution sites last week to hold discussions with the military about improving safety on the routes. GHF closed the Rafah site on Monday due to the 'chaos of the crowds', according to a Facebook site associated with the group. A GHF spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment. – Shots fired from the 'dangerous zone' Heba Joda, who was in the crowd Monday, said gunfire broke out at a roundabout where previous shootings have occurred, around a kilometre (half a mile) from the aid site. She said the shots came from the 'dangerous zone' where Israeli troops and their allies are stationed. She said she saw men from a local militia led by Yasser Abu Shabab trying to organise the crowds into lines on the road. When people pushed forward, the gunmen opened fire. People then hurled stones at them, forcing them to withdraw toward the Israeli positions, she said. The Abu Shabab group, which calls itself the Popular Forces, says it is guarding the surroundings of the GHF centres in southern Gaza. Aid workers say it has a long history of looting UN aid trucks. GHF has said it does not work with the Abu Shabab group. Hussein Shamimi, who was also in the crowd, said his 14-year-old cousin was among those killed. We didn't receive anything. They shot us 'There was an ambush… the Israelis from one side and Abu Shabab from another,' he said. Mohamed Kabaga, a Palestinian displaced from northern Gaza, said he saw masked men firing toward the crowds after trying to organise them. 'They fired at us directly,' he said while being treated at Nasser Hospital, in the nearby city of Khan Younis. He had been shot in the neck, as were three other people seen by an Associated Press journalist at the hospital. Mr Kabaga said he saw around 50 masked men with 4×4 vehicles in the area around the roundabout, close to Israeli military lines. 'We didn't receive anything,' he said. 'They shot us.' Nasser Hospital said several men had been shot in the upper body, including some in the head. Zaher al-Waheidi, head of the Health Ministry's records department, said six people were killed and more than 99 wounded, some of them at another GHF centre in central Gaza. – The 20-month war rages on The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. They are still holding 55 hostages, more than half of them believed to be dead, after most of the rest were released in ceasefire agreements or other deals. Israel's military campaign has killed over 54,900 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which has said women and children make up most of the dead. It does not say how many of those killed were civilians or combatants. The war has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, displaced some 90% of the population and left the territory almost completely reliant on international aid. Hamas has said it will only release the remaining hostages in return for a lasting ceasefire and an Israeli withdrawal. Israel says it will continue the war until all the captives are returned and Hamas is defeated or disarmed and sent into exile. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said that even then, Israel will maintain open-ended control over Gaza and facilitate what he refers to as the voluntary emigration of much of its population to other countries, a plan rejected by most of the international community, including the Palestinians, who view it as a blueprint for their forcible expulsion.

Tunnel underneath a hospital in southern Gaza reveals death site of Hamas commander
Tunnel underneath a hospital in southern Gaza reveals death site of Hamas commander

Irish Times

time2 hours ago

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Tunnel underneath a hospital in southern Gaza reveals death site of Hamas commander

Just over a metre wide and less than two metres tall, the tunnel led deep beneath a big hospital in southern Gaza Strip . The underground air bore the stench of what smelled like human remains. After walking about 40 metres along the tunnel, the likely cause became clear. In a tiny room to which the tunnel led, the floor was stained with blood. It was here, according to the Israel Defense Forces , that Mohammed Sinwar – one of Hamas' top militant commanders – was killed last month after a nearby barrage of Israeli strikes. What was in that dark and narrow tunnel is one of the war's biggest Rorschach tests, the embodiment of a broader narrative battle between Israelis and Palestinians over how the conflict should be portrayed. READ MORE The military escorted a reporter from the New York Times to the tunnel on Sunday afternoon, as part of a brief and controlled visit for international journalists that the Israelis hoped would prove that Hamas uses civilian infrastructure as a shield for militant activity. To Palestinians, Israel's attack on, and subsequent capture of, the hospital compound highlighted its own disregard for civilian activity. The room in which Muhammad Sinwar and four other militants is said to have died inside a tunnel in southern Gaza. To Israelis, the location of an underground passageway highlights Hamas's abuse of civilians but to Palestinians, Israel's decision to target it highlights Israel's own disregard for civilian life. Photograph: Patrick Kingsley/The New York Times Last month, the military ordered the hospital's staff and patients to leave the compound, a long with the residents of the surrounding neighbourhoods. Then, officials said, they bored a huge hole, about 10 metres deep, in a courtyard within the hospital grounds. Soldiers used that hole to gain access to the tunnel and retrieve Sinwar's body, and they later escorted journalists there so they could see what the military called his final hiding place. There are no known entrances to the tunnel within the hospital itself, so the journalists lowered themselves into the Israeli-made cavity using a rope. To join the controlled tour, the Times agreed not to photograph most soldiers' faces or publish geographic details that would put them in immediate danger. To the Israelis who brought us there, this hiding place – directly underneath the emergency department of the European Gaza Hospital – is emblematic of how Hamas has consistently endangered civilians, and broken international law, by directing its military operations from the cover of hospitals and schools. Hamas has also dug tunnels underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City and a United Nations complex elsewhere in that city. 'We were dragged by Hamas to this point,' Brig Gen Effie Defrin, the chief Israeli military spokesman, said at the hospital. 'If they weren't building their infrastructure under the hospitals, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't attack this hospital.' Defrin said Israel had tried to minimise damage to the hospital by striking the area around its buildings, without a direct hit on the medical facilities themselves. 'The aim was not to damage the hospital and, as much as we could, to avoid collateral damage,' he said. Israeli soldiers stand in a hole used to gain access to a tunnel in southern Gaza where the Israeli military says a top Hamas militant commander was killed in the Gaza Strip. Photograph: Patrick Kingsley/The New York Times To the Palestinians who were forced from here, the Israeli attack on Sinwar embodied Israel's willingness to prioritise the destruction of Hamas over the protection of civilian life and infrastructure, particularly the health system. According to the World Health Organisation, Israel has conducted at least 686 attacks on health facilities in Gaza since the start of the Israel-Hamas war, damaging at least 33 of Gaza's 36 hospitals. Many, like the European Gaza Hospital, are now out of service, fuelling accusations from rights groups and foreign governments – strongly denied by the Israelis – that Israel is engaged in genocide, in part by wrecking the Palestinian health system. 'It's morally and legally unacceptable, but Israel thinks it is above the law,' Dr Salah al-Hams, the hospital spokesman, said in a phone interview from another part of southern Gaza. Although Israel targeted the periphery of the hospital site, leaving the hospital buildings standing, al-Hams said the strikes had wounded 10 people within the compound, damaged its water and sewage systems and dislodged part of its roof. The attack killed 23 people in buildings beyond its perimeter, he said, 17 more than were reported on the day. The tremors caused by the strikes were like an 'earthquake,' al-Hams said. Al-Hams said he had been unaware of any tunnels beneath the hospital. Even if they were there, he said, it does not justify the attack. 'Israel should have found other ways to eliminate any wanted commander. There were a thousand other ways to do it.' The journey to the hospital revealed much about the current dynamics of the war in Gaza. In a roughly 20-minute ride from the Israeli border, we saw no Palestinians – the result of Israel's decision to order the residents of southern Gaza to abandon their homes and head west to the sea. Many buildings were simply piles of rubble, destroyed either by Israeli strikes and demolitions or Hamas' booby traps. Here and there, some buildings survived, more or less intact; on one balcony, someone had left a tidy line of potted cactuses. We drove in open-top 4x4s, a sign that across this part of southeastern Gaza, the Israeli military no longer fears being ambushed by Hamas fighters. Until at least the Salah al-Din highway, the territory's main north-south artery, the Israeli military seemed to be in complete command after the expansion of its ground campaign in March. The European Gaza Hospital and the tunnel beneath it are among the places that now appear to be exclusively under Israeli control. Under the laws of war, a medical facility is considered a protected site that can be attacked only in very rare cases. If one side uses the site for military purposes, that may make it a legitimate target, but only if the risk to civilians is proportional to the military advantage created by the attack. The Israeli military said it had tried to limit harm to civilians by striking only around the edges of the hospital compound. But international legal experts said that any assessment of the strike's legality needed also to take into account its effect on the wider health system in southern Gaza. In a territory where many hospitals are already not operational, experts said, it is harder to find legal justification for strikes that put the remaining hospitals out of service, even if militants hide beneath them. When we entered the tunnel Sunday, we found it almost entirely intact. The crammed room where Sinwar and four fellow militants were said to have died was stained with blood, but its walls appeared undamaged. The mattresses, clothes and bedsheets did not appear to have been dislodged by the explosions, and an Israeli rifle – stolen earlier in the war, the soldiers said – dangled from a hook in the corner. It was not immediately clear how Sinwar was killed, and Defrin said he could not provide a definitive answer. He suggested that Sinwar and his allies may have suffocated in the aftermath of the strikes or been knocked over by a shock wave unleashed by explosions. If Sinwar was intentionally poisoned by gases released by such explosions, it would raise legal questions, experts on international law said. 'It would be an unlawful use of a conventional bomb – a generally lawful weapon – if the intent is to kill with the asphyxiating gases released by that bomb,' said Sarah Harrison, a former lawyer at the US Defence Department and an analyst at the International Crisis Group. Defrin denied any such intent. 'This is something that I have to emphasise here, as a Jew first and then as a human being: We don't use gas as weapons,' he said. In other tunnels discovered by the Israeli military, soldiers have used Palestinians as human shields, sending them on ahead to scour for traps. Defrin denied the practice. The tunnel was excavated by Israelis, he said. This article originally appeared in The New York Times .

Watch: Surveillance footage shows crew on Gaza aid boat putting hands up as Israeli forces seize vessel
Watch: Surveillance footage shows crew on Gaza aid boat putting hands up as Israeli forces seize vessel

Irish Examiner

time3 hours ago

  • Irish Examiner

Watch: Surveillance footage shows crew on Gaza aid boat putting hands up as Israeli forces seize vessel

Surveillance footage released on Monday (June 9) showed crew on board a charity vessel that had tried to break a naval blockade of the Gaza Strip seated with their hands up, with officials saying Israeli forces had taken command of the yacht. In the footage, the crew on the British-flagged yacht Madleen, which is operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), were told to hand over their mobile phones and 'anything sensitive' by an unidentified person. The Israeli Foreign Ministry later confirmed that it was under Israeli control.

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