Boat carrying Greta Thunberg to Gaza intercepted by Israeli Navy
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Half of the passengers are French. On Monday, Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot confirmed that Paris had warned citizens of the risks involved in joining the protest flotilla and said that the consulate had requested Israel grant consular protection to the detainees.
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Meanwhile, Madrid summoned the Israeli chargé d'affaires to protest the seizure. One Spanish national was listed as a passenger.
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The other nationalities represented were one each from Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey.
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The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) called the interception 'a blatant act of international piracy and state terrorism.' Iran also condemned the intervention as 'a form of piracy,' since it happened in international waters.
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Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the military to show the activist group a 43-minute video of atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 massacre, which sparked the war in Gaza.
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'It's appropriate that Greta the antisemite and her Hamas-supporting friends see exactly who the terror group Hamas is, what atrocious acts they carried out against women, the elderly and children, and who Israel is fighting to defend against,' said Katz.
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He ordered the video to be screened for the group upon their arrival at the Port of Ashdod, where their boat was towed after Israeli troops boarded the vessel.
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The British-flagged yacht Madleen, operated by the pro-Palestinian Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), was attempting to deliver a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid to the Gaza population.
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'While Greta and others attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity—and which included less than a single truckload of aid—more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel within the past two weeks. In addition, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has distributed close to 11 million meals directly to civilians in Gaza,' said the Foreign Ministry.
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'There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip—they do not involve Instagram selfies. 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,' the ministry added.
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In an earlier post, the ministry emphasized that Israel's blockade of Gaza is legal under international law, and that the Gaza maritime zone is an active conflict area, which Hamas terrorists have previously exploited for attacks, including the Oct. 7 massacre.
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'Unauthorized attempts to breach the blockade are dangerous, unlawful, and undermine ongoing humanitarian efforts. We call on all actors to act responsibly and to channel humanitarian aid through legitimate, coordinated mechanisms, not through provocation,' the ministry stated.
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Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of blockade on Gaza since Hamas seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007. Israel says the blockade is needed to prevent Hamas from importing arms, while critics say it amounts to collective punishment of Gaza's Palestinian population.
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