Activists say Israeli navy intercepted nine boats from aid flotilla headed to Gaza

On Wednesday, the Israeli navy intercepted a flotilla of aid to Gaza which was closely monitored in the world through their publications on social networks, according to the flotilla activists.

The Global Sumud Flotilla is made up of around 50 boats and 500 activists, including an eminent environmental militant Greta Thunberg. Flotilla news officer Hasina Kathrada said nine ships had been intercepted early Thursday morning.

“Before illegally embarking on ships, it seems that Israeli naval ships intentionally damaged ships communications, with the aim of blocking distress signals and stopping the live flow of their illegal boat embarkation,” said Flatillala press office in a statement. “In addition to confirmed boats as intercepted, live coverage and communication were lost with several other boats.”

The fleet was assaulted by a number of incidents, including explosions, harassment by drones and the scrambling of communications, which, according to activists, seemed to have been attempts to hinder the movement of ships.

The activists’ objective was to deliver a symbolic assistance package and send a message by crossing Israeli naval blocking and arriving at the Gaza Strip.

Greg Stoker, an American veteran aboard one of the boats in the flotilla, said that around a dozen naval ships with their transponders were approaching them while around 70 or 80 sea miles from the Gaza coast.

“They currently salute our ships, telling us to deactivate our engines and wait for other instructions or our boats will be seized and we will face the consequences,” said Stoker, wearing a red life jacket, in a trembling video published on Instagram.

A video published on a telegram media account associated with the flotilla seems to show that one of its ships is sprayed with water with a legend on the screen saying that the ship is “cannon in water”. Another article on the Telegram chain said that one of the ships had “been deliberately struck at sea”.

Israeli defense forces did not immediately respond to a request for comments.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs posted on X that the only goal of the flotilla was the “provocation”.

“Israel informed the flotilla that he approached from an active combat zone and violated a legal naval blockade. Israel reiterated the offer to transfer any peacefully aid by safe channels to Gaza,” said the post.

A post separated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows a Thunberg video pulling a white shirt on a black t-shirt and a keffiyeh while sitting next to a person kneeling in military costume.

The interception of the flotilla occurs while Israeli forces are continuing their devastating assault on Gaza City, where dozens of people have been killed in recent days and hundreds of thousands have been moved. The deaths of famines also continued to increase, according to Palestinian health officials.

Israel launched its offensive in Gaza after the attacks led by Hamas on October 7, 2023, when some 1,200 people were killed and around 250 were taken hostage, marking a major escalation in a decades conflict.

In the almost two years since Palestinian health officials say that more than 65,000 people have been killed in Gaza, including thousands of children, while a large part of the enclave has been reduced to rubble.

On Wednesday, the flotilla boats were sailing in international waters in northern Egypt and had entered what activists and others called a “danger zone” or a “high risk zone”. Although it is still in international waters, it is an area where the Israeli navy has prevented other boats that try to break its blockade in the past and that the flotilla has been warned not to cross.

The United Nations Convention on the Act of the Sea stipulates that a state has a jurisdiction only up to 12 marine kilometers from its coast. In general, states do not have the right to seize ships in international waters, although armed conflicts are an exception to this.

People owned by FDI Flotillas for Gaza this summer were only detained for a few days, but this time could be different, said Miriam Azem, an international advocacy coordinator for Adalah, a human rights organization and a legal center.

“We have seen some threats by civil servants that this time, we could consider more prolonged detention. All these threats are not completely baseless, but we do not put anything in the Israeli authorities in this regard,” said Azem in a telephone interview.

His group will probably provide a legal representation for many Flotilla Sumud activists who could be detained.

“The scale of this, of this flotilla which really questions the blockade in a way that has not disputed the blockade before, it is really difficult to predict how the authorities will react, and we have not even exceeded the point of all interceptions,” said Azem. “It is still going very well as we are talking about.”