Climate activist Thunberg joins aid ship sailing to Gaza aimed at breaking Israel's blockade
'We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,' Thunberg said, bursting into tears during her speech.
'Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it's not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,' she added.
Israel, which was founded in the aftermath of the Holocaust, has adamantly rejected genocide allegations against it as an antisemitic 'blood libel.'
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In mid-May, Israel slightly eased its blockade of Gaza after nearly three months, allowing a limited amount of humanitarian aid into the territory.
Experts have warned Gaza is at risk of famine if more aid is not brought in.
U.N. agencies and major aid groups say Israeli restrictions, the breakdown of law and order, and widespread looting make it extremely difficult to deliver aid to Gaza's roughly 2 million Palestinians.
Among those joining the crew of the Madleen are 'Game of Thrones' actor Liam Cunningham and Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament who is of Palestinian descent. She has been barred from entering Israel due to her active opposition to the Israeli assault on Gaza.
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The activists expect to take seven days to get to their destination, if they are not stopped.
Thunberg, who became an internationally famous climate activist after organizing massive teen protests in her native Sweden, had been due to board a previous Freedom Flotilla ship last month.
That attempt to reach Gaza by sea, in early May, failed after another of the group's vessels, the 'Conscience', was attacked by two alleged drones while sailing in international waters off the coast of Malta.
The group blamed Israel for the attack, which damaged the front section of the ship, in the latest confrontation over efforts to send assistance to the Palestinian territory devastated by nearly 19 months of war.
The Israeli government says the blockade is an attempt to pressure Hamas to release hostages it took during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that triggered the conflict. Hamas-led militants assaulted southern Israel that day, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting 251. Hamas is still holding 58 hostages, 23 of whom are believed to be alive.
In response, Israel launched an offensive that has killed over 52,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between fighters and civilians. Israel's bombardment and ground operations have destroyed vast areas of the territory and left most of its population homeless.
The Flotilla group was only the latest among a growing number of critics to accuse Israel of genocidal acts in its war in Gaza. Israel vehemently denies the allegations, saying its war is directed at Hamas militants, not Gaza's civilians.
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'We are breaking the siege of Gaza by sea, but that's part of a broader strategy of mobilizations that will also attempt to break the siege by land,' said activist Thiago Avila.
Avila cited the upcoming Global March to Gaza — an international initiative also open to doctors, lawyers and media — which is set to leave Egypt and reach the Rafah crossing in mid-June to stage a protest there, asking Israel to stop the Gaza offensive and reopen the border.
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Boston Globe
43 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Harvard withheld their degrees for participating in a pro-Palestinian protest. They don't regret it.
'It felt like a culmination of things that had already been happening,' said Joshi in an interview this week with the Globe. 'It felt inseparable from the way they were treating pro-Palestinian protests in general.' A year since Harvard refused to award degrees to the 13 graduating seniors who participated in a pro-Palestinian encampment on Harvard Yard, the students say the experience left them feeling disillusioned about their Ivy League education and frustrated with what transpired, but grounded in their activism and largely unscathed. A handful are now pursuing graduate degrees from other elite universities, and others are working. Some are still participating in protests. A pro-Palestinian protest encampment behind a gate of Harvard Yard in April 2024. Andrew Burke-Stevenson for The Boston Globe Advertisement All were eventually awarded their Harvard degrees in the months after their intended graduation, the graduates said. After the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas began, the 2024 tent encampments on Harvard Yard became one of the key symbols of a pro-Palestinian student movement that spread across the nation. At Harvard, both Jewish and Muslim students reported feeling uncomfortable, while a Advertisement On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted 251 people from Israel. Gaza health authorities have said that Israel's retaliatory offensive has The Harvard student protesters agreed days before commencement in 2024 to dismantle the encampment; university leaders Days later, the students found out they wouldn't graduate since they were not in 'good standing' with the university due to multiple campus policy violations related to the encampment. That prompted another wave of outrage among students and faculty, more than 1,000 of whom reportedly Graduating students walked out of the 373nd Commencement at Harvard University to call attention to the plight of Palestinians on May 23, 2024. The university's top governing board rejected the recommendation of faculty to allow 13 pro-Palestinian students who participated in a three-week encampment in Harvard Yard to graduate with their classmates. Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff Some protestors, including Joshi, were allowed to don their caps and gowns at Harvard's 2024 Commencement and walk across the stage. Joshi said she was handed a piece of white cardboard instead of a degree. Others, however, were barred from commencement. Syd Sanders, 23, was told to withdraw from the university (a directive that he says was later dropped) and was banned from graduation. He had several ongoing student disciplinary cases at the time related to what he described as 'a long and storied career' in on-campus activism. 'They kept trying to evict me,' Sanders said in an interview this week, 'They would go by my dorm and be like, 'Why is all your stuff still here?'' Sanders was the final of the 13 students to receive a degree, to his knowledge. Advertisement 'They mailed it to me in February,' Sanders said. In a statement, Harvard spokesperson Jonathan Palumbo said that the university does not comment on student matters and did not further comment for this story. The impact of the withheld degrees varied by graduate. Phoebe Barr, 24, was among the protesters who were placed on an involuntary leave by the university, meaning she lost access to her dorm room and could not work at her on-campus job for the remainder of the semester. 'I was homeless and unemployed very suddenly,' Barr said. She stayed on the couch of someone who offered her a place to crash. Those are the memories of Harvard she wants to recall, she said, the acts of kindness in the community. 'For all the hostility we received, we also saw a real outpouring of support from the community of Harvard students, faculty, and those who lived around us in Cambridge,' she said. Barr was denied access to the Harvard campus at the end of her senior year. Lane Turner/Globe Staff Barr's temporarily withheld history and literature degree also impacted her search for a job after college: She could not list her undergraduate degree as her highest level of education. Not knowing when she would get her degree, she said, was difficult and stressful as she cobbled together cover letters and resumes. To potential employers, she wrote that her degree was still pending. Her degree was conferred in July last year; she got a job at a Boston University library that fall. Joshi's probation was initially to last until May 2025, meaning she would graduate a year later than planned. That timing was a problem: If she weren't in good standing with the university, she'd lose her Harvard fellowship to fund a master's degree at the University of Cambridge in England. Advertisement The funding securing her spot at Cambridge eventually came through after Harvard conferred her degree over the summer. Sanders, however, said that, at least for him, the lack of a degree didn't have any impact on his professional life. He still moved to California and got his dream job as a union organizer. 'I can't imagine a career in college activism was an inhibitor to becoming a union organizer — it was probably an asset," Sanders said. The encampment taught him how to do effective community organizing, lessons he said he is applying today as he helps organize support for immigrants targeted for Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests. 'It was the most sacred moment of community I have ever felt in my life,' Sanders said of the Harvard encampment. 'No regrets.' A protester hung a Palestine flag in the pro-Palestinian encampment in Harvard Yard on May 7, 2024. Lane Turner/Globe Staff Sanders is now an activist in Oakland and is working as a bartender and waiter (he quit his union organizing job). 'Just like everybody else who graduated on time, I'm figuring life out,' Sanders said. He's thinking of applying to grad school or getting another union organizer job; he still participates in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Had the protesters' probation resulted in them walking at graduation this year, they would've been at a much different ceremony. This May, Garber was greeted by 'It was pretty jarring,' said Barr, who attended the commencement to take part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration. 'Last year, he was booed by the audience.' Advertisement While she is glad to see Harvard fighting Trump, she said it does not negate her frustrations with how the university handled the encampment last year. Joshi added that while there is a lot of excitement for Harvard's stance against Trump, the school's stance on free speech and academic freedom still 'rings hollow' to her. She is now finishing a master's degree in sociology at the University of Cambridge — funded by the Harvard fellowship that almost didn't materialize — and writing her dissertation on South Asian involvement in the Palestinian movement in the UK. After graduation, she plans to find legal work at a nonprofit. Overall, she remembers the Harvard protests as a success: They drew attention to the thousands of children who have died in Gaza and will never have the chance to grow up to get a degree, she said. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Erin Douglas can be reached at
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Israel says it has retrieved body of kidnapped Thai hostage from Gaza
Israel says it has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage kidnapped into Gaza on 7 October. The prime minister's office said that the body of Nattapong Pinta was returned to Israel "in a special military operation". Mr Pinta, who had a wife and son, was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz and killed in captivity near the start of the war, said the government. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas militants. Israel's defence minister Israel Katz said that Mr Pinta's body was retrieved from the Rafah area. The 36-year-old went to Israel to work in agriculture. Mr Katz wrote in a post on X: "I send my deepest condolences to his wife, his young son, and his family, and I thank our heroic fighters who operate under fire time and again to bring back all the hostages, driven by a deep moral commitment. "We will not rest until all the hostages, the living and the fallen, are returned to Israel." The Hostage Families Forum said in a statement: "We stand with Nattapong's family today and share in their grief. "While the pain is immense, his family will finally have certainty after 20 terrible and agonising months of devastating uncertainty. "Every family deserves such certainty to begin their personal healing journey. "We emphasise once again that decision-makers must do everything necessary to reach an agreement that will bring back all 55 remaining hostages - the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial." Fifty-five hostages remain in Gaza, of whom Israel says more than half are dead. On Thursday, , both of whom had Israeli and US citizenship.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Body of murdered Thai hostage returned during Israel forces' special operation
"We will not rest or be silent until we return all of our hostages home - both the living and the dead," the PMO said in a statement. The body of the last Thai hostage Pinta Nattapong has been recovered from the Gaza Strip on Friday, during a special operation conducted by the IDF and ISA, the Prime Minister's Office confirmed in a statement on Saturday. "The operation was made possible by precise intelligence obtained from an ISA interrogation of a terrorist, along with intelligence received from the Hostage Task Force and the IDF Intelligence Directorate," a joint IDF and ISA statement. Identification of Nattapong's body was carried out by the National Institute of Forensic Medicine in cooperation with the Israel Police, the Hostage Task Force of the IDF's Manpower Directorate, the statement added. 55 hostages remain in Gaza under Hamas captivity. Nattapong was kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz by Hamas on October 7, 2023. In January 2025, five Thai nationals who were kidnapped and held hostage in Gaza were released from captivity. At that time Nattapong was believed to be alive. The freed Thai captives were also working in agriculture in the areas surrounding the Gaza Strip at the time of their capture. The Thai Embassy updated Nattapong's family on the situation in coordination with the Defense Intelligence Agency. "Together with all the citizens of Israel, we extend our condolences to Nattapong's family and the Thai people," the PMO statement said. "We will not rest or be silent until we return all of our hostages home - both the living and the dead." "The IDF and ISA will continue to make all efforts possible to bring home all the hostages," the organizations said in their statement. "We stand with Nattapong's family today and share in their grief. While the pain is immense, his family will finally have certainty after 20 terrible and agonizing months of devastating uncertainty. Every family deserves such certainty to begin their personal healing journey," the Hostages and Missing Families Forum HQ said in a press release. "We emphasize once again that decision-makers must do everything necessary to reach an agreement that will bring back all 55 remaining hostages—the living for rehabilitation and the deceased for proper burial." "Israel's longest war in its history cannot end in victory without all 55 hostages who remain in captivity."
