Israel seizes aid boat bound for Gaza
A picture shows the aid sailboat Madleen at the southern port of Ashdod after being intercepted by Israeli forces. Photo: AFP
A Gaza-bound aid boat reached Israel's Ashdod port on Monday after being intercepted by Israeli forces, preventing the dozen activists on board including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.
An AFP photographer said that the Madleen, which organisers said was intercepted in international waters overnight, reached the port north of Gaza at around 8:45 pm (1745 GMT), escorted by the Israeli navy.
The Madleen set sail from Italy on June 1 to raise awareness of food shortages in the Gaza Strip, which the United Nations has called the "hungriest place on Earth".
After more than 20 months of war, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the UN has warned that Gaza's entire population is at risk of famine.
At around 4:02 am (0102 GMT) on Monday, Israeli troops "forcibly intercepted" the vessel as it approached Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said.
"If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped," Thunberg said in pre-recorded footage shared by the coalition.
Video from the group shows the activists with their hands up as Israeli forces boarded the vessel, with one of them saying nobody was injured prior to the interception.
Israel's foreign ministry, in a post on social media, said "all the passengers of the 'selfie yacht' are safe and unharmed", adding it expected the activists to return to their home countries.
Turkey condemned the interception as a "heinous attack" and Iran denounced it as "a form of piracy" in international waters.
The Madleen was intercepted about 185 kilometres (115 miles) west of the coast of Gaza, according to coordinates from the coalition.
President Emmanuel Macron requested that the six French nationals aboard the boat "be allowed to return to France as soon as possible", a presidential official said.
Two of them are journalists, Omar Fayyad of Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Yanis Mhamdi who works for online publication Blast, according to media rights group Reporters Without Borders, which condemned their detention and called for their "immediate release".
Al Jazeera "categorically denounces the Israeli incursion", the network said in a statement, demanding the reporter's release.
Adalah, an Israeli NGO offering legal support for the country's Arab minority, said the activists on board the Madleen had requested its services, and that the group was likely to be taken to a detention centre before being deported.
In what organisers called a "symbolic act", hundreds of people launched a land convoy on Monday from Tunisia with the aim of reaching Gaza.
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