(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Israel faced international condemnation and protests yesterday after its forces intercepted around 40 boats carrying aid and more than 400 foreign activists, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, to Gaza.
Cameras broadcasting live feeds from the boats, showed armed Israeli soldiers in helmets and night vision goggles boarding the ships, while passengers huddled in life vests with their hands up.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said he expected the members of the flotilla to be expelled from Israel on Monday and Tuesday and sent to European capitals on charter flights.
“All the passengers are safe and in good health,” the Israeli foreign ministry said after they began to be taken ashore in Ashdod.
The Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), the organiser of the voyage, said an estimated 443 volunteers had been detained, some of them transferred to one large cargo vessel before being taken ashore.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan criticised Israeli aggression, saying it showed Israel's government has no intention of letting hopes for peace grow.
“I condemn the thuggery directed at the global Sumud Flotilla, which set out to draw attention to the barbarity of children dying of hunger in Gaza and to deliver humanitarian aid to the oppressed Palestinians,” he said in a speech to officials from his AK Party in the capital Ankara.
“This attack by the Israeli government against civilians sailing in international waters has once again shown the madness of its genocidal leaders trying to hide their crimes against humanity in Gaza” and reveals“once again Israel's brutality”, Erdogan said.
The Istanbul chief prosecutor's office said it had launched an investigation into the detention of 24 Turkish citizens on the vessels, Turkiye's state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa urged Israel to immediately release South Africans who were on the flotilla, including former president Nelson Mandela's grandson, Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela.
The flotilla, which set sail in late August, is transporting medicine and food to Gaza and consists of more than 40 civilian vessels with parliamentarians, lawyers and activists.
The flotilla's progress across the Mediterranean Sea garnered international attention as nations including Turkiye, Spain and Italy sent boats or drones in case their nationals required assistance, even as it triggered repeated warnings from Israel to turn back.
Israel's interception of the flotilla sparked protests in Italy and Colombia, while protests were also called in Spain, Greece, Ireland and Turkiye. Italian unions called a general strike for today.
The flotilla is the latest seaborne attempt to break Israel's blockade of Gaza, much of which has been turned into a wasteland by almost two years of war.
The boats were about 70 nautical miles off Gaza when they were intercepted, inside a zone that Israel is policing to stop any boats approaching. (Reuters)

MENAFN02102025000067011011ID1110144792