Israel said on Monday it had intercepted a Gaza-bound ship carrying aid and a dozen people, including the activist Greta Thunberg.
The civilian ship, called the Madleen, has been operating under the auspices of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a group that opposes the nearly two-decade-old blockade of Gaza.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said its activists had been “kidnapped” by the Israeli military. Israel said it expected to return the ship’s passengers to their home countries.
What happened?
The Madleen set sail from Sicily on June 1. Israel vowed to prevent the ship from reaching Gaza, saying its military would use “any means necessary” to stop it from breaching an Israeli naval blockade of the enclave.
Surveillance footage recorded early Monday aboard the Madleen shows people in the cockpit wearing orange life vests as the bright lights of another vessel approach. People can then be seen boarding the Madleen.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said that drones had been flying over the ship before it lost contact with those on board.
The Israeli foreign ministry later posted video of what it said were the passengers, who were wearing life jackets and being offered sandwiches and water.
“The ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel,” the ministry wrote on social media on Monday. It accused “Greta and others” of trying “to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity.”
In a briefing to reporters on Monday, a government spokesman said the passengers on the ship would “be returned home to their countries as soon as possible.”
Who and what was on board the Madleen?
The passengers included Ms. Thunberg, who rose to fame with her protests against climate change, and Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament.
Ms. Thunberg has also been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s blockade and its conduct of the war.
“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” she said last week. “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 livestreamed genocide.”
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday in a blunt statement: “To Greta the antisemite and her friends, propagandists for Hamas — I say clearly: You would do well to turn back, because you won’t get to Gaza. Israel will act against any attempt to breach the blockade or aid terrorist organizations by sea, air or land.”
The coalition had said in a statement that it was bringing urgently needed goods, including baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, medical supplies and children’s prosthetics.
The Israeli foreign ministry dismissed the amount of material as “tiny” in its statement, and “less than a single truckload of aid.”
Why is Gaza blockaded?
Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza, with Egypt’s help, after Hamas, the Islamist militant group, took over the strip in 2007. Israeli officials have said the blockade is necessary to prevent weapons from being smuggled into the enclave.
The blockade has remained in place during the 20 months of war that have followed a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023. Israel recently also barred the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory for roughly 80 days, bringing the population to the brink of famine, according to international aid organizations. It has since supported an aid delivery system that has been marred by violence and shunned by humanitarian groups.
The voyage of the Madleen was only the latest attempt by activists to breach the Gaza blockade.
A ship called Conscience left Tunisia in late April carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza. It was rocked by explosions off the coast of Malta, where it was scheduled to stop to pick up more people, including Ms. Thunberg. The passengers and crew were not harmed, but the mission was abandoned.
In 2010, nine passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla carrying aid from Turkey to Gaza, were killed in an Israeli commando raid, causing international outrage and damaging Turkish-Israeli relations. A 10th passenger died from his wounds years later.
Israel said at the time that its soldiers, some of whom had rappelled onto the ship from helicopters, came under ambush and were attacked with clubs, metal rods and knives.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel, and Jiawei Wang from Seoul.
Isabel Kershner, a Times correspondent in Jerusalem, has been reporting on Israeli and Palestinian affairs since 1990.
Ephrat Livni is a reporter for The Times’s DealBook newsletter, based in Washington.
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