Israeli forces boarded aid ship Madleen during night before reaching Gaza shore
The Palestinian resistance group Hamas decried on Monday Israel's interception of an aid ship bound for the blockaded Gaza Strip as “state terrorism.”
The British-flagged ship Madleen aimed to break a crippling blockade imposed by Israel on Gaza, where nearly 55,000 people have been killed in a brutal onslaught since October 2023.
The ship, carrying an amount of aid, including food and baby formula, was boarded by Israeli forces during the night before it could reach the Gaza shore and was towed to Ashdod Port in Israel.
“The interception of Madleen at sea and preventing it from delivering symbolic aid to our people facing a genocidal war constitutes organized state terrorism, a flagrant violation of international law, and an attack on civilian volunteers acting out of humanitarian motives,” Hamas said in a statement.
It said the attempt to break the Gaza siege shows that “Gaza is not alone and that the conscience of humanity remains alive in the face of the fascist occupation.”
Hamas held Israel responsible for the safety of the activists aboard the aid ship and called for their release.
“We also call on the UN and international organizations to condemn this crime and take urgent action to break the siege on our people,” it said.
The aid ship, run by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, set sail for Gaza on June 1 from the Port of San Giovanni Li Cuti in Sicily, Italy.
A total of 12 people are on board, including 11 activists and one journalist.
Among them are Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, French-Palestinian Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan, Yasemin Acar from Germany, Baptiste Andre, Pascal Maurieras, Yanis Mhamdi and Reva Viard from France, Thiago Avila from Brazil, Suayb Ordu from Türkiye, Sergio Toribio from Spain, Marco van Rennes from the Netherlands and Omar Faiad, a journalist with Al Jazeera Mubasher, also from France.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry said that the activists will be deported to their home countries.
As Israel continued to close all Gaza's border crossings to humanitarian aid since early March, aid agencies have warned about the risk of famine among Gaza's 2.4 million population.
Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.
Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war crimes against civilians in the enclave.
