The Israeli Foreign Ministry said early on Monday morning that a Gaza-bound ship carrying a dozen pro-Palestinian activists and some aid had been diverted toward Israeli shores and that its passengers were expected to return to their home countries.
Israel had vowed on Sunday 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.
The civilian ship, called the Madleen, has been operating under the auspices of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, an international grass-roots campaign that opposes the nearly two-decade-old blockade of Gaza. The ship set sail from Sicily on June 1. The passengers included the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and Rima Hassan, a member of the European Parliament.
“The ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel,” the Israeli foreign ministry wrote on social media on Monday. It accused “Greta and others” of attempting “to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity.” The ministry later posted video of what it said were the passengers, who were wearing life jackets and being offered sandwiches and water.
The posts came soon after the Freedom Flotilla Coalition announced that alarms had sounded and drones were over the ship, then said it had lost contact with the Madleen. The group said the activists had been “kidnapped” by the Israeli military.
Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza, with Egypt’s help, after Hamas, the Islamic militant group, took over the coastal strip in 2007. Israeli officials have said the blockade is necessary to prevent weapons from being smuggled into the enclave.
Conditions in Gaza have worsened dramatically in the 20 months of war since the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023. Israel recently barred the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory for 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 Madleen was carrying only a symbolic amount of humanitarian assistance — an amount the Israeli foreign ministry dismissed as “tiny” in its statement, and “less than a single truckload of aid.”
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.
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday that he had instructed the country’s military to prevent the vessel from reaching Gaza.
In a blunt statement, he said, “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.”
Ms. Thunberg has 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,” Ms. Thunberg 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 live-streamed genocide.”
Israel’s military has blocked past attempts by pro-Palestinian activists to bring aid to Gaza by sea, including by force. 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, stirring 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.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition has described the interception of the Mavi Marmara as “an unlawful and deadly attack” and said the Madleen’s mission was “a continuation of that legacy — a refusal to surrender to silence, fear, or complicity” in the face of the siege of Gaza.
Another recent attempt by the coalition to challenge the blockade was also thwarted. A ship called Conscience left Tunisia in late April carrying human rights activists and aid and was scheduled to stop in Malta to pick up more people, including Ms. Thunberg. But the ship was rocked by explosions off the coast of Malta, setting it on fire.
The passengers and crew were not harmed, but the mission was abandoned.
In recent weeks, Israel has backed a new aid delivery system that it says is aimed at getting help to Palestinians without Hamas being able to divert or benefit from it.
The effort got off to a troubled start as Israeli forces fired at hungry and desperate Palestinians on their way to collect boxes of food at a distribution site in southern Gaza, killing and wounding scores of them.
The distribution sites are being operated by American security contractors under the auspices of a new organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. The effort has been boycotted by the United Nations and other prominent aid groups, which accuse Israel of using aid as a weapon.
The foundation said it had distributed more than 1.1 million meals on Sunday across three distribution sites. In addition, the group said it had delivered 11 truckloads of food directly to community leaders through local merchants as part of a pilot project aimed at easing crowding at the existing distribution points.
On Saturday, the foundation said it was “impossible to proceed” with the distribution of aid that day, accusing Hamas of threatening its operations. A group spokesman on Sunday shared a written warning he said local staff members had received threatening them with “serious consequences” if they continued working for the program.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel.
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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