An Israeli tribunal has ruled that eight activists who were on a Gaza-bound boat carrying aid must remain in custody after they refused to sign deportation orders, a human rights group and legal center that is representing them said on Wednesday.
The Israeli authorities intercepted the vessel, the Madleen, on Monday. Four of the passengers, including the environmental campaigner Greta Thunberg, agreed to be deported immediately.
The other eight activists refused and appeared before an Israeli immigration tribunal late on Tuesday. The tribunal upheld the decision to detain the activists and set a review hearing for next month, Adalah, the human rights group, said on Wednesday. It added that two of the detained activists, including a European lawmaker, were being held in solitary confinement.
The boat had been operating under the auspices of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, a group that opposes the nearly two-decade naval blockade of Gaza. Israel says the restrictions are needed to prevent weapons from reaching Hamas, which controls the coastal enclave.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said the Israeli military “kidnapped” its activists when the Madleen was intercepted. Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, called the voyage a public relations stunt and said the boat was carrying only a “tiny amount of aid.”
What happened?
The Madleen set sail from Sicily on June 1. Israel vowed to prevent the boat from reaching Gaza, saying its military would use “any means necessary” to stop it from breaching an Israeli naval blockade of the enclave.
Surveillance footage recorded early Monday aboard the Madleen shows people in the cockpit wearing orange life vests as the bright lights of another vessel approach. People can then be seen boarding the boat.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said that drones had been flying over the Madleen before it lost contact with those on board.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry later posted video of what it said were the passengers, who were wearing life jackets and being offered sandwiches and water. Ms. Thunberg described this as a “P.R. stunt” after she landed in her native Sweden on Tuesday.
The eight activists who remain in custody include Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament. A social media post published on Ms. Hassan’s official account said that she and the other activists had been detained illegally as they were in international waters en route to Palestinian territory.
Ms. Hassan and Thiago Ávila, a Brazilian national, were placed in solitary confinement in separate prisons from the other campaigners, Adalah said in a statement on Wednesday. Ms. Hassan was transferred after she wrote “Free Palestine” on a wall in Givon Prison in the city of Ramla, where the eight were initially held. Mr. Ávila was placed in isolation after he started a hunger and thirst strike two days ago.
Who and what was on board the Madleen?
The passengers included activists from Brazil, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Turkey, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Two journalists, including one from the news channel Al Jazeera, were also onboard.
Ms. Thunberg, who rose to fame with her protests against climate change, has been an outspoken opponent of Israel’s blockade and its conduct of the war in Gaza.
“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” she said last week. “Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the livestreamed genocide.”
During a layover in Paris, Ms. Thunberg told reporters, “On international waters, we were illegally attacked and kidnapped by Israel, and taken against our will to Israel where we were detained.”
Israel’s defense minister, Israel Katz, said on Sunday in a blunt statement: “To Greta the antisemite and her friends, propagandists for Hamas — I say clearly: You would do well to turn back, because you won’t get to Gaza. Israel will act against any attempt to breach the blockade or aid terrorist organizations by sea, air or land.”
The coalition had said in a statement that it was bringing urgently needed goods, including baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, medical supplies and children’s prosthetics.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry dismissed the amount of material as “less than a single truckload of aid” in its statement. Mr. Saar said that Israel planned to deliver the aid on the vessel.
Why is Gaza blockaded?
Israel imposed a blockade on Gaza, with Egypt’s help, after Hamas, the Islamist militant group, took over the strip in 2007.
The blockade has remained in place during the war that followed a deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel in October 2023. Israel recently also barred the entry of humanitarian aid into the territory for roughly 80 days, bringing the population to the brink of famine, according to international aid organizations. It has since supported a new but much criticized aid delivery system that has been marred by violence and shunned by humanitarian groups.
The voyage of the Madleen was only the latest attempt by activists to breach the Gaza blockade and deliver aid to the enclave.
A ship called Conscience left Tunisia in late April carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza. It was rocked by explosions off the coast of Malta, where it was scheduled to stop to pick up more people, including Ms. Thunberg. The passengers and crew were not harmed, but the mission was abandoned.
In 2010, nine passengers aboard the Mavi Marmara, part of a flotilla carrying aid from Turkey to Gaza, were killed in an Israeli commando raid, causing international outrage and damaging Turkish-Israeli relations. A 10th passenger died from his wounds years later.
Israel said at the time that its soldiers, some of whom had rappelled onto the ship from helicopters, came under ambush and were attacked with clubs, metal rods and knives.
Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting from Rehovot, Israel, and Jiawei Wang from Seoul.
