Israel Hijacks Ship Carrying Humanitarian Aid to Gaza
HAVANA TIMES – The Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirmed that its civilian ship Madleen, which was transporting humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, was “forcibly attacked/intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters” this Monday, June 9th, and denounced that its crew was kidnapped and its cargo confiscated.
Israel “has no legal authority to detain international volunteers aboard the Madleen,” said Huwaida Arraf, human rights lawyer and organizer of the Freedom Flotilla, whose second attempt in less than two months to reach Gaza with humanitarian aid was thwarted.
The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) claimed to have taken control of the Madleen flotilla bound for Gaza in the early morning hours, stating they would transfer the 12 activists on board — including Swedish environmentalist Greta Thunberg — to a port in southern Israel, and later deport them to their countries of origin.
Arraf stated that “this seizure flagrantly violates international law and defies the binding orders of the ICJ (International Court of Justice, based in The Hague) requiring unimpeded humanitarian access to Gaza.”
The volunteers aboard the vessel — among them Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila and Franco-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan — “are not subject to Israeli jurisdiction and cannot be penalized for delivering aid or defying an illegal blockade; their detention is arbitrary, illegal, and must end immediately,” said Arraf.
The flotilla specified that the interception occurred at coordinates 31.95236° north latitude and 32.38880° east longitude, that the vessel was illegally boarded, its unarmed civilian crew was kidnapped, and its “life-saving cargo — including baby formula, food, and medical supplies — was confiscated.”
The Israeli government stated that all activists were safe, that they would be deported to their home countries, and that Defense Minister Yoav Gallant had ordered them to be shown “a video documenting the atrocities committed by Hamas during the October 7, 2023, massacre.”
On that date, the Palestinian Islamist militia Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, taking another 250 hostage, and triggering a large-scale Israeli military response that has since devastated the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people.
The offensive has caused the deaths of more than 55,000 Palestinians, injured 125,000 — nearly 500 Israeli soldiers have also been killed — and in Gaza’s 365 square kilometers, nearly all infrastructure has been reduced to ruins by bombings, with hundreds of thousands on the brink of famine.
Israel blocked aid deliveries from United Nations agencies, and a limited food distribution effort it organized through a Humanitarian Foundation set up with the United States has led to the deaths of over 100 people, shot by nervous soldiers as starving Palestinians approached.
In that context, the flotilla’s Conscience ship, which was carrying aid to Gaza in early May, was attacked by drones and disabled in European waters, and now the same has happened with the interception of the Madleen.
Foreign affairs officials from Germany, Australia, Brazil, Spain, France, Ireland, and Sweden have contacted their Israeli counterparts seeking the release of the flotilla activists.
Amnesty International accused Israel of once again violating international law by seizing the flotilla’s sailboat.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty’s Secretary General, declared that “the operation, carried out in the middle of the night and in international waters, violates international law and endangered the safety of those on board.”
“Israel has once again violated its legal obligations toward the civilian population of the occupied Gaza Strip and demonstrated its chilling disregard for the legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice,” said Callamard.