Hamas condemns Israel's seizure of activist boat, calls it 'piracy'
Hamas condemned Israel's seizure of Gaza-bound aid ship Madleen as "state terrorism" and said it salutes its activists.
"We strongly condemn the act of piracy committed by the Israeli occupation forces by intercepting the Madaleen solidarity ship in international waters as this is an act of state-sponsored terrorism," Hamas said.
"We salute the activists of different nationalities who affirmed that Gaza is not alone. The Madaleen and upcoming land convoys from Algeria, Tunisia, Jordan, and elsewhere are living proof of the failure of Zionist propaganda."
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Middle East Eye
25 minutes ago
- Middle East Eye
Seizure of Madleen is the latest in more than a decade of Israeli attacks on aid flotillas
Israeli forces seized control of the Madleen aid vessel aiming to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip on Monday morning - the latest of many such Israeli interceptions over the past decade and a half. The British-flagged Madleen, which is operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), was seeking to deliver a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid, including rice and baby formula, and raise international awareness of the humanitarian crisis there. However, the boat was intercepted in the early hours of Monday before it could reach Gaza, the FFC said on its Telegram account. Israeli authorities detained its crew of 12, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French politician Rima Hassan. Before their arrest, crew aboard the FFC had said that quadcopters surrounded the vessel and sprayed it with a "white liquid". New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters It's the latest instance of years of Israeli attacks on FFC-organised aid vessels attempting to break Israel's 18-year air, naval and land blockade on the Palestinian territory. The FFC says that it is governed by the principles of non-violent resistance. The coalition includes member organisations from several countries, including Canada, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the US, Ireland, Brazil, Australia and France. Middle East Eye takes a look at the history of Israeli attacks on FFC flotillas. Decade and half of Israeli attacks The coalition first came together in 2010, after Israeli forces boarded a Freedom Flotilla mission in May that year and killed 1o activists. The Mavi Marmara mission had been organised by the Free Gaza Movement and Turkey's IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation. The ship set sail on 22 May from Sarayburnu port, Istanbul, in an attempt to breach the Israeli blockade on Gaza. A week later, in the Mediterranean Sea south of Cyprus, it joined the rest of the aid flotilla, comprising three passenger and three cargo ships carrying essential humanitarian aid and 700 activists. But on 31 May 2010, despite being in international waters, Israeli troops violently boarded the Mavi Marmara vessel using helicopters and speedboats. Nine people were killed instantly, while another later died as a result of his wounds. The incident became a major international story, with Israel's actions receiving strong condemnations. Following the 2010 mission, the FFC was created to bring together and coordinate various campaigns from around the world seeking to break Israel's siege. A subsequent mission in 2011, named "Freedom Flotilla II - Stay Human", was due to set sail towards Gaza on 5 July. However, the vast majority of vessels in the flotilla were unable to depart. Organisers said that Israel had sabotaged two of the ships set to depart from Turkey and Greece. One of the vessels, organised by an Irish group, was not allowed to leave the port after Greek authorities cited safety concerns. The only aid ship that managed to get near Gaza, the French vessel Dignite al-Karama, was intercepted by Israeli authorities. Greta Thunberg aboard Gaza flotilla: Doing nothing 'is not an option' Read More » Freedom Flotilla III, which left Sweden on 10 May 2015, was again intercepted by Israeli authorities in international waters a month and a half after setting sail. One of the boats, named Marianne, was forced by Israeli troops to turn towards the city of Ashdod, in southern Israel. Other vessels also turned back. Among those on Marianne were lawmaker Basel Ghattas, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and Moncef Marzouki, the former president of Tunisia. The following year, the FFC organised the Women's Boat to Gaza, a single ship with an entirely female crew. It set sail from Barcelona on 14 September 2016, but two weeks later, on 5 October, was seized by Israeli forces. The entirety of the all-female crew - which included journalists, actors, politicians and even a Nobel Peace Prize winner - were arrested by Israeli troops, who took them to Ashdod. All of them were subsequently deported. Another mission, which set sail in May 2017 in solidarity with Gaza fishermen, was attacked by a suspected Israeli drone in international waters near Malta. In July the following year, Israeli forces stopped al-Awda, a Norwegian flagged fishing boat that was part of the coalition. All 22 people on board were arrested and taken to Ashdod. In 2023 and 2024, the ship Handala, which focused on the children of Gaza, set sail to several destinations in Europe to educate people about Israel's siege and war on Gaza. Last month, another vessel organised by the FFC, the Conscience, failed to continue its journey after being struck by an Israeli drone near Maltese waters.
The National
44 minutes ago
- The National
On Palestine at the UN, it's Netanyahu versus the world
The government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is setting the stage for the upcoming UN International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine and the Implementation of the Two-State Solution. The three-day session, to be held in New York from June 17-20, will be chaired by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, and Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. It is believed that at this confab, France and a number of other countries will formally recognise the State of Palestine. In an angry response, Mr Netanyahu announced that should France and others make this announcement, Israel will retaliate with the formal annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In a sense, the threats are meaningless, not because Israel couldn't take measures to sabotage a Palestinian state, but because this is precisely what it has been doing for several decades – and it has accelerated its efforts in the past few years. The daily news from Gaza is numbing. Earlier, in March this year, after 18 months of an immense toll in lives and property, Israel agreed to a ceasefire, only to break it and intensify its plans to wipe out and annex large swathes of this territory. Daily, there are reports of Israeli bombings, shelling, or shootings that kill scores of Palestinians at shelters or food distribution sites. In too many instances, Israeli officials first deny that it happened, then deny that they had anything to do with the killings – 'it might have been Hamas' or, 'if we did, it was because our soldiers were forced to shoot in the air' to control unruly crowds. When all else fails, the government obfuscates by announcing that a military review panel is looking into the matter (coupled with the charge that anyone prejudging the matter before the Israeli military publicly issues its findings – which they never do – must be harbouring an anti-Israel bias). The result is that there is no accountability, and the killings continue. The Netanyahu government's plan for Gaza is taking shape. The logic behind the Israeli-US 'humanitarian mission' in Gaza is now established and that is to facilitate their masterplan for the area to wipe out the population. First, the Israeli government is conducting 'mopping up' operations in the north, evicting as many Palestinians as possible from 80 per cent of Gaza and forcing them to congregate in congested areas along the southern border. Then, after denying Palestinians food aid for three months, they have set up these Israeli-run food distribution sites in the south with the clear message that 'if you're hungry and want food, this is the only place you'll get it.' As throngs of desperate Palestinians amass at the sites, Israeli forces use live ammunition as crowd control, killing dozens at each location. The entire enterprise is inhuman and yet it continues. The situation in the West Bank has gone from bad to worse. After months of raids that have taken the lives of 1,000 Palestinians and destroyed the homes of 40,000, the Israeli government has authorised the establishment of 22 new settlements, the confiscation of more Palestinian lands, and the construction of more Jewish-only roads. All of this will serve to further the cantonisation of the West Bank, isolating Palestinian population centres from one another. The design Israel's government is following was laid out in 1978 by Matityahu Drobles of the World Zionist Organisation. The Drobles Plan envisioned total conquest of the West Bank through the establishment of Israeli settlement blocs connected by highways and secured infrastructure that would divide the area making the establishment of a contiguous Palestinian state impossible. This was Drobles' declared intent. Back in the 1970s, Israel's Labour governments rejected this idea, preferring to build settlements along the 1967 lines. When the Likud party came to power, they embraced Drobles in 1979 and began to implement it, but without ever formally acknowledging it. Now they have. Palestinians in East Jerusalem fare no better. They still face threats of confiscation of homes and properties, the weaponisation of archaeology through which the Israeli government has seized sites they believe hold special importance to their history, while ignoring that same site's pre-history or current importance to Palestinian Muslims or Christians. And while Christians and Muslims are violently assaulted or harassed as they seek to pray on their faiths' holy days, Jewish worshippers are protected by the Israeli military as they violate what had been the previously accepted 'status quo' at the Haram Al Sharif. While in the past, these violations were carried out by a handful of Jewish religious extremists, now there are thousands, including officials, who annually invade the Haram. And as if to signal their clear intentions, Israeli officials have changed street signs which once pointed the way to the 'Haram' to now read the 'Temple'. And so, the upcoming UN sessions have the makings of a supreme test of wills. It pits the Israeli government, backed by the US, against the rest of the world. What Israel's government is doing and what it still can do is known. The question is whether other nations will find the resolve to directly confront Israel's plans and take action to isolate and seek accountability from it for its actions. It will require more than recognition of Palestinian rights, verbal protests, or resolutions of disapproval of Israeli policies. Europe can't just protest settlements and genocide in Gaza, while continuing to be the largest buyers of Israeli-made weapons. If they don't apply sanctions (like Spain) or boycott settlement products (like Ireland), nothing will change. In a real sense, at stake during next week's UN sessions is more than just recognition of a Palestinian state, it is the survival of the rule of law and human rights covenants and the integrity of the UN.
Middle East Eye
2 hours ago
- Middle East Eye
Azerbaijan maintains oil sales to Israel despite Turkish backlash, says report
Azerbaijan has vowed to Israel that it will continue supplying the country with oil, despite officially halting oil sales last year, according to a report in Haaretz. Baku recently removed oil sales to Israel from its customs records, after steady year-on-year increases in exports to the country which had reached over a million tons in 2024. According to the records, exports to Israel stopped in October amid the war on Gaza. However, Israeli sources told Haaretz that the sales have continued, and that the change in customs records may be due to the transactions being made to traders registered in third countries. "We received a promise from the Azerbaijanis that the strategic relations will continue, including in the energy sector, and we have nothing to worry about," one source said. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters Two Israeli sources said that the halt on sales in October was driven by pressure from Turkey, Baku's most important political and military ally. Azerbaijan's state oil company to invest $7bn in Turkey Read More » The Turkish pressure, Haaretz reported, is partly due to the fact that Azerbaijani oil exported to Israel is carried by the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, running through Turkey. Ankara cut trade ties with Israel in May last year over the war on Gaza and Israeli refusal to allow Turkey to airdrop humanitarian aid to the besieged Palestinian enclave. Several Turkish opposition parties and voices have protested against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government, accusing it of continuing to supply Israel with Azerbaijani oil. Protests have also taken place outside the Istanbul office of Socar, Azerbaijan's state oil company. The Israeli source told Haaretz: "Even if Azerbaijan stops exporting oil to Israel, we will not collapse. We will bring it from somewhere else. "But they want to balance the situation in which they are dependent only on us, from a security perspective.' Tankers turning off tracking signal Israel provided military and diplomatic assistance to Azerbaijan in its offensive against Armenia in September 2023, which resulted in an Azerbaijani takeover of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region. Ilham Shaban, the chairman of the Azerbaijani Caspian Barrel Oil Research Centre, told Haaretz that by selling oil through individuals, it can avoid publicising that the exports eventually end up in Israel. He said that Baku could then claim that the sales do 'not fuel the planes that annihilate Palestinian children'. Analysis in November found evidence of 'systemised trade' in crude oil between Turkey and Israel, despite Ankara's trade embargo over the war. The Stop Fuelling Genocide campaign released evidence that suggested that the Seavigour tanker shipped crude oil from Turkey's Ceyhan port to a pipeline near Ashkelon in Israel. Cop29 turns heat up on Turkey and Azerbaijan over oil exports to Israel Read More » The port is the last stop on the BP-owned Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. The oil is then shipped from the Heydar Aliyev Terminal at Ceyhan to Israel, accounting for almost 30 percent of its crude oil imports. The researchers tracked 10 journeys made in 2024 by the Kimolos tanker between Ceyhan and Ashkelon, with eight of them occurring after Turkey announced its embargo in May. Despite the ship turning off its tracking signal for several days in the Eastern Mediterranean to mask its route, the researchers managed to identify it as docking in Israel 10 times using satellite imagery. Port logs for the Kimolos reveal that on a typical trip to Israel, the tanker is registered as being bound for Egypt, leaving with a full load of oil. But the tanker does not dock in Egypt, instead 'disappearing' for a few days in the Eastern Mediterranean. This strategy follows a similar pattern to that of the Seavigour, which also turned off its location transponder and reappeared in Sicily days later. The Turkish energy ministry has repeatedly denied that any oil tankers bound for Israel have left Ceyhan since May, stating that 'companies transporting oil through the BTC pipeline for export to global markets from Haydar Aliyev Terminal have respected Turkiye's recent decision not to engage in trade with Israel'. Middle East Eye previously reported that the advocacy group Oil Change International, which authored a report tracking oil shipments to Israel up until July 2024, said its data sources showed multiple shipments from Ceyhan since May. A Turkish official previously told MEE that BP sells oil to intermediary companies, which Ankara cannot control, and tankers pick up the oil "without declaring their final destination".
