Israel has seized aid ships bound for Gaza in international waters near Greece, flotilla organisers said yesterday, decrying the move as an “escalation of Israel’s impunity.”
The ships make up part of a second Global Sumud flotilla to try in recent months to break an Israeli blockade by carrying humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
They sailed from the Spanish port of Barcelona on April 12.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar wrote on X that Israel “has successfully blocked attempts to breach the lawful naval blockade on Gaza.”
“In co-ordination with the Greek government, the individuals transferred from the flotilla vessels to the Israeli vessel will be disembarked on a Greek beach in the coming hours,” he said.
“Israel will not allow the breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza.”
The vessels were seized by Israel late on Wednesday in international waters off Greece’s Peloponnese peninsula, which is hundreds of miles from Gaza, the flotilla’s organisers said.
The Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it had “asked Israel to withdraw its vessels from the area” and said it offered to “welcome the passengers on its territory and to ensure their safe return to their countries.”
It said it was in talks with Israel to secure disembarkation. But the ministry gave no further details on when and where it could take place.
“This is piracy,” the flotilla organisers said in a statement.
“This is the unlawful seizure of human beings on the open sea near Crete, an assertion that Israel can operate with total impunity, far beyond its own borders, with no consequences.”
No state had the right to claim, police, or occupy international waters, but Israel had done that, extending its control outward to occupy the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Europe, it added.
Israel’s foreign ministry yesterday called the flotilla organisers “professional provocateurs.”
Germany and Italy’s foreign ministries issued a joint statement saying they were following developments with “deep concern.”
They did not say how many Italians or Germans had been detained.
In a statement yesterday, the US State Department threatened “to impose consequences” against those who support the flotilla that it cast as pro-Hamas.
Washington also said it backed Israeli actions against the flotilla.
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