Boat carrying Greta Thunberg and human rights group arrives in southern Israel
A boat carrying Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has arrived in southern Israel. Thunberg and a human rights group had been headed toward Gaza to deliver food and medicine, but were stopped by Israeli authorities on Monday.
Israel's Foreign Ministry disclosed that night that the boat had docked at Ashdod Port. It said, "The passengers are currently undergoing medical examinations to ensure they are in good health."
It released images showing Thunberg on a boat at the port flying the Israeli flag in the background.
The ministry said, "Upon arrival, arrangements will be made for their return to their respective home countries."
The operator of the boat Thunberg was on has criticized Israel's actions, saying, "We continue to demand the immediate release of all volunteers."
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Japan Today
2 hours ago
- Japan Today
Greta Thunberg deported from Israel; denounces Gaza 'war crimes'
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, who departed Israel by plane on Tuesday after being detained aboard the Gaza-bound British-flagged yacht "Madleen" after Israeli forces boarded the charity vessel as it attempted to reach the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli naval blockade, talks to journalists surrounded by French police as she arrives at a terminal at the Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport, in Roissy-en-France near Paris, France, June 10, 2025. REUTERS/Gonzalo Fuentes By Crispian Balmer and Alexander Cornwell Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel on Tuesday, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Israeli forces seized their small aid ship, which was seeking to break a longstanding naval blockade of Gaza, and the 12-strong crew were brought to Israel. Four of the group, including Thunberg, agreed to immediate deportation, while the eight others contested the repatriation order. They have been detained near Tel Aviv airport awaiting a court hearing on their legal status. Among those who have refused to leave are Rima Hassan, a French member of the European parliament. "We were 12 peaceful volunteers sailing on a civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid on international waters. We did not break laws. We did nothing wrong," Thunberg told reporters after she flew into Paris, accusing Israel of kidnapping her. "(There) is a continued violation of international law and war crimes that Israel is systematically committing against Palestinians by not letting aid come to starving people," the 22-year-old Swede said. Israel has imposed a rigid land, air and sea blockade on Gaza, saying the shutdown is needed to prevent arms from reaching Hamas militants. It lets in limited supplies of food that are mainly distributed by a private group it backs. The Israeli Foreign Ministry dismissed the Gaza-bound sea mission as a pro-Hamas publicity stunt. "Greta and her friends brought in a tiny amount of aid on their celebrity yacht. It did not help the people of Gaza. This was nothing but a ridiculous gimmick," Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told reporters on Tuesday. Saar said the small quantity of supplies aboard the UK-registered yacht would be transferred to Gaza through "real humanitarian channels". Thunberg defended the aid effort, organized by a pro-Palestinian group called the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, saying a larger boat that could carry a bigger cargo was disabled last month in the Mediterranean by drones allegedly operated by Israel. She also laughed off criticism from U.S. President Donald Trump, who had described her as an angry person, saying: "I think the world needs a lot more young angry women to be honest, especially with everything going on right now." She added that it was unclear where she would be heading next, telling reporters it could be Sweden. Thunberg travels mostly by train and has long shunned airplanes because of their hefty carbon emissions. In 2019, she crossed the Atlantic by boat to attend a climate summit. Israel has imposed a naval blockade on Gaza since Hamas took control of the coastal enclave in 2007. It tightened its grip significantly after Hamas-led militants rampaged through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing more than 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages, by Israeli tallies. Israel's retaliatory offensive against Hamas has since killed nearly 55,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials, and reduced much of the territory to a wasteland. In March, Israel imposed a total blockade of all supplies reaching Gaza, which experts say has driven the population of more than two million to the brink of famine. Over the past two weeks Israel has allowed in limited food supplies largely distributed by a new Israeli-backed group. Israel says the step is necessary to prevent Hamas from diverting aid. Hamas has denied stealing aid. © Thomson Reuters 2025.
Japan Times
9 hours ago
- Japan Times
Palestinians' dangerous ordeal to reach Israeli-approved aid
When university professor Nizam Salama made his way to a southern Gaza aid point last week, he came under fire twice, was crushed in a desperate crowd of hungry people and finally left empty handed. Shooting first started shortly after he left his family's tent at 3 a.m. on June 3 to join crowds on the coast road heading towards the aid site in the city of Rafah run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a new U.S.-based organization working with private military contractors to deliver aid in Gaza. The second time Salama came under fire was at Alam Roundabout close to the aid delivery site, where he saw six dead bodies. Twenty-seven people were killed that day by Israeli fire on aid seekers, Palestinian health authorities said. Israel said its forces had shot at a group of people they viewed as a threat and the military is investigating the incident. At the aid delivery site, known as SDS 1, queues snaked through narrow cage-like fences before gates were opened to an area surrounded by sand barriers where packages of supplies were left on tables and in boxes on the ground, according to undated CCTV video distributed by GHF. Salama said the rush of thousands of people once the gates opened was a "death trap." A boy crouches as Palestinians gather to collect what remains of relief supplies from the GHF distribution center in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on June 5. | REUTERS "Survival is for the stronger: people who are fitter and can make it earlier and can push harder to win the package," he said. "I felt my ribs going into each other. My chest was going into itself. My breath ... I couldn't breathe. People were shouting; they couldn't breathe at all." Reuters could not independently verify all the details of Salama's account. It matched the testimonies of two other aid seekers, who spoke of crawling and ducking as bullets rattled overhead on their way to or from the aid distribution sites. All three witnesses said they saw dead bodies on their journeys to and from the Rafah sites. A statement from a nearby Red Cross field hospital confirmed the number of dead from the attack near the aid site on June 3. Asked about the high number of deaths since it began operations on May 26, GHF said there had been no casualties at or in the close vicinity of its site. The Israeli military didn't respond to detailed requests for comment. Israeli military spokesman Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin told reporters on Sunday that Hamas was "doing its best" to provoke troops, who "shoot to stop the threat" in what he called a war zone in the vicinity of the aid sites. He said military investigations were underway "to see where we were wrong." Salama, 52, had heard enough about the new system to know it would be difficult to get aid, he said, but his five children — including two adults, two teenagers and a 9-year-old — needed food. They have been eating only lentils or pasta for months, he said, often only a single meal a day. Palestinian children hold pots and pans as they wait at a hot meal distribution point in Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip. | AFP-Jiji "I was completely against going to the aid site of the American company (GHF) because I knew and I had heard how humiliating it is to do so, but I had no choice because of the bad need to feed my family," said the professor of education administration. In total, 127 Palestinians have been killed trying to get aid from GHF sites in almost daily shootings since distribution under the new system began two weeks ago, Gaza's health authority said on Monday. The system appears to violate core principles of humanitarian aid, said Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, a major humanitarian organization. He compared it to the Hunger Games, the dystopian novels that set people to run and fight to the death. "A few will be rewarded and the many will only risk their lives for nothing," Egeland said. "International humanitarian law has prescribed that aid in war zones should be provided by neutral intermediaries that can make sure that the most vulnerable will get the relief according to needs alone and not as part of a political or military strategy," he said. GHF did not directly respond to a question about its neutrality, replying that it had securely delivered enough aid for more than 11 million meals in two weeks. Gaza's population is around 2.1 million people. Famine risk Israel allowed limited U.N.-led aid operations to resume on May 19 after an 11-week blockade in the enclave, where experts a week earlier warned a famine looms. The U.N. has described the aid allowed into Gaza as "drop in the ocean." Separate to the U.N. operation, Israel allowed GHF to open four sites in Gaza, bypassing traditional aid groups. The GHF sites are overseen by a U.S. logistics company run by a former CIA official and part-owned by a Chicago-based private equity firm, with security provided by U.S. military veterans working for a private contractor, two sources have said. Gaza University professor Nizam Salama sits inside the tent where he and his family have taken refuge, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on June 5. | REUTERS An Israeli defense official involved in humanitarian matters said GHF's distribution centers were sufficient for around 1.2 million people. Israel and the United States have urged the U.N. to work with GHF, which has seen a high churn of top personnel, although both countries deny funding it. Reuters has not been able to establish who provides the funding for the organization, but reported last week that Washington was considering an Israeli request to put in $500 million. GHF coordinates with the Israeli army for access, the foundation said, adding that it was looking to open more distribution points. It has paused then resumed deliveries several times after the shooting incidents, including on Monday. Last week, it urged the Israeli army to improve civilian safety beyond the perimeter of its operations. GHF said the U.N. was failing to deliver aid, pointing to a spate of recent lootings. Israel says the U.N.'s aid deliveries have previously been hijacked by Hamas to feed their own militants. Hamas has denied stealing aid and the U.N. denies its aid operations help Hamas. The U.N., which has handled previous aid deliveries into Gaza, says it has over 400 distribution points for aid in the territory. On Monday it described an increasingly anarchic situation of looting and has called on Israel to allow more of its trucks to move safely. Shooting starts Salama and four neighbors set out from Mawasi, in the Khan Younis area of the southern Gaza Strip, at 3 a.m. on Tuesday for the aid site, taking two hours to reach Rafah, which is several miles away near the Egyptian border. Shooting started early in their journey. Some fire was coming from the sea, he said, consistent with other accounts of the incidents. Israel's military controls the sea around Gaza. Mourners pray during the funeral of Palestinians killed, in what the Gaza health ministry say was Israeli fire near a distribution site in Rafah, at Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, on June 3. | REUTERS His small group decided to press on. In the dark, the way was uneven and he repeatedly fell, he said. "I saw people carrying wounded persons and heading back with them towards Khan Younis," he said. By the time they reached Alam Roundabout in Rafah, about a kilometer from the site, there was a vast crowd. There was more shooting and he saw bullets hitting nearby. "You must duck and stay on the ground," he said, describing casualties with wounds to the head, chest and legs. He saw bodies nearby, including a woman, along with "many" injured people, he said. Another aid seeker interviewed by Reuters, who also walked to Rafah on June 3 in the early morning, described repeated gunfire during the journey. At one point, he and everyone around him crawled for a stretch of several hundred meters, fearing being shot. He saw a body with a wound to the head about 100 meters from the aid site, he said. The Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah received a mass casualty influx of 184 patients on June 3, the majority of them injured by gunshots, the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement, calling it the highest number of weapon-wounded patients the hospital had ever received in a single incident. There were 27 fatalities. "All responsive patients said they were trying to reach an assistance distribution site," the statement said. When Salama finally arrived at the aid point on June 3, there was nothing left. "Everyone was standing pulling cardboard boxes from the floor that were empty," he said. "Unfortunately I found nothing: a very, very, very big zero." Although the aid was gone, ever more people were arriving. "The flood of people pushes you to the front while I was trying to go back," he said. As he was pushed further toward where GHF guards were located, he saw them using pepper spray on the crowd, he said. GHF said it was not aware of the pepper spray incident but said its workers used nonlethal measures to protect civilians. "I started shouting at the top of my lungs, brothers I don't want anything, I just want to leave, I just want to leave the place," Salama said. "I left empty-handed ... I went back home depressed, sad and angry and hungry too," he said.
Japan Times
11 hours ago
- Japan Times
Expanding missile threats and airspace closures are straining airlines
Proliferating conflict zones are an increasing burden on airline operations and profitability, executives say, as carriers grapple with missiles and drones, airspace closures, location spoofing and the shoot-down of another passenger flight. Airlines are racking up costs and losing market share from canceled flights and expensive re-routings, often at short notice. The aviation industry, which prides itself on its safety performance, is investing more in data and security planning. "Flight planning in this kind of environment is extremely difficult. ... The airline industry thrives on predictability, and the absence of this will always drive greater cost," said Guy Murray, who leads aviation security at European carrier TUI Airline. With increasing airspace closures around Russia and Ukraine, throughout the Middle East, between India and Pakistan and in parts of Africa, airlines are left with fewer route options. "Compared to five years ago, more than half of the countries being overflown on a typical Europe-Asia flight would now need to be carefully reviewed before each flight," said Mark Zee, founder of OPSGROUP, a membership-based organization that shares flight risk information. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East since October 2023 led to commercial aviation sharing the skies with short-notice barrages of drones and missiles across major flight paths — some of which were reportedly close enough to be seen by pilots and passengers. Russian airports, including in Moscow, are now regularly shut down for brief periods due to drone activity, while interference with navigation systems, known as GPS spoofing or jamming, is surging around political fault lines worldwide. When hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan last month, the neighbors blocked each other's aircraft from their respective airspace. "Airspace should not be used as a retaliatory tool, but it is," Nick Careen, International Air Transport Association (IATA) senior vice president for operations, safety and security, told reporters at the airline body's annual meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday. Isidre Porqueras, chief operating officer at Indian carrier IndiGo, said the recent diversions were undoing efforts to reduce emissions and increase airline efficiencies. Worst-case scenario Finances aside, civil aviation's worst-case scenario is a plane being hit, accidentally or intentionally, by weaponry. In December, an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. The plane was accidentally shot down by Russian air defenzes, according to Azerbaijan's president and sources. In October, a cargo plane was shot down in Sudan, killing five people. Six commercial aircraft have been shot down unintentionally, with three near-misses since 2001, according to aviation risk consultancy Osprey Flight Solutions. Governments need to share information more effectively to keep civil aviation secure as conflict zones proliferate, IATA Director General Willie Walsh said this week. Safety statistics used by the commercial aviation industry show a steady decline in accidents over the past two decades, but these do not include security-related incidents such as being hit by weaponry. IATA said in February that accidents and incidents related to conflict zones were a top concern for aviation safety requiring urgent global coordination. Tough choices Each airline decides where to travel based on a patchwork of government notices, security advisers, and information-sharing between carriers and states, leading to divergent policies. The closure of Russian airspace to most Western carriers since the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022 put them at a cost disadvantage compared to airlines from places like China, India and the Middle East that continue to take shorter northern routes that need less fuel and fewer crew. Shifting risk calculations mean Singapore Airlines' flight SQ326 from Singapore to Amsterdam has used three different routes into Europe in just over a year, Flightradar24 tracking data shows. When reciprocal missile and drone attacks broke out between Iran and Israel in April 2024, it started crossing previously avoided Afghanistan instead of Iran. Last month, its route shifted again to avoid Pakistan's airspace as conflict escalated between India and Pakistan. Flight SQ326 now reaches Europe via the Persian Gulf and Iraq. Singapore Airlines did not respond immediately to a request for comment. Pilots and flight attendants are also worried about how the patchwork of shifting risk might impact their safety. "IATA says airlines should decide if it's safe to fly over conflict zones, not regulators. But history shows commercial pressures can cloud those decisions," said Paul Reuter, vice president of the European Cockpit Association, which represents pilots. Flight crew typically have the right to refuse a trip due to concerns about airspace, whether over weather or conflict zones, IATA security head Careen said. "Most airlines, in fact, I would say the vast majority of them, do not want crew on an aircraft if they don't feel comfortable flying," he said.
