The last boat of the 42 vessels in the Gaza humanitarian flotillathat sought to breach Israel’s 16-year maritime blockade has been intercepted by Israeli forces.
A live stream from the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) had late on Thursday evening shown the Polish-flagged sailing boat Marinette still “sailing strong towards Gaza” after the Israeli government claimed to have halted the flotilla carrying about 500 parliamentarians, lawyers and activists including Greta Thunberg.
The Israeli foreign ministry on Friday said procedures were under way to deport the participants in its custody, which organisers have put at about 450 people. Four Italian MPs among the 40 Italian nationals taking part in the flotilla are expected to return on a scheduled flight to Italy.
Footage from Thursday night showed the final boat of the flotilla crewed by six people, including three Turkish citizens, a German and an Omani. Speaking via a video call with flotilla organisers, the Australian captain of Marinette said: “We have a bunch of very tough Turks onboard … we’ve got a lady from Oman and myself, and we’re just going to continue in the direction.”
Hannah Claire Smith, a flotilla spokesperson, said Marinette had joined the flotilla late after bad weather had forced it to return to port in Barcelona.
It was probably because of the delay that it managed to surprise the Israelis. The boat was intercepted in the early hours of Friday morning when GSF estimates it was 42.5 nautical miles from the Gaza coast – the first time since Israel imposed a naval blockade in 2009 that an unauthorised humanitarian mission had come closer than 70 nautical miles to Gaza.
Previous attempts by activists to break the naval blockade on Gaza were stopped by force by the Israeli military. In 2010, 10 Turkish activists were killed by Israeli commandos who raided the Mavi Marmara ship as it led an aid flotilla towards Gaza.
According to the flotilla’s live tracker, a sailing boat named Mikeno also appeared to have crossed into Gaza’s territorial waters, idling 9 miles off the coast before being intercepted.
GSF said it had no firm information, however, as the organisers had lost contact with Mikeno’s crew hours earlier.
“It could be a tracker error or a technical issue with the monitoring,” said Smith. “We will only have confirmation after speaking with the Mikeno crew, which is impossible right now as they are currently being held by the Israelis.”
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The detained activists on the flotilla are being taken to Israel where they will face deportation, according to Israel’s foreign ministry.
Some of those on the latest flotilla, including Thunberg, have been previously detained by Israeli authorities as they attempted to break the blockade.
In the past, activists detained by Israel were not criminally prosecuted and instead their presence was treated as an immigration matter.
