Israeli forces intercept Gaza-bound aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg, diverts it
An aid boat carrying international activists, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and French Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Rima Hassan, was intercepted by Israeli forces in the early hours of Monday after it attempted to breach the naval blockade of Gaza.
The vessel, a British-flagged yacht named Madleen, was part of a mission organised by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC). It had set sail from Sicily on June 6 and was aiming to reach the Gaza Strip by later today before being boarded by Israeli troops, the group said in a statement on Telegram.
Taking to micro-blogging site X, Hassan claimed that all crew of the Freedom Flotilla boat was arrested by the Israeli Army in international waters around 2 am.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry posted a video on X showing Israeli forces taking control of the boat and providing refreshments to the crew members who were donning life jackets. "The yacht, with its 12-person crew, was carrying a symbolic shipment of humanitarian aid, including rice and baby formula," the X post read.
The interception is the latest in a series of efforts by international civil society groups to draw attention to the ongoing "humanitarian crisis" in Gaza, where an Israeli naval blockade has been in place for years. The FFC has long criticised the blockade as a form of collective punishment and called for unimpeded humanitarian access.
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