The crew of activists sailing to Gaza will be forced to watch a video of Hamas’ October 7 atrocities after being intercepted by the IDF, Israel’s defence minister said.
Israel Katz congratulated the military on its ‘quick and safe takeover’ of the Madleen after Israeli commandos seized the vessel in international waters overnight.
The group of 12, including climate activist Greta Thunberg, spent the night on the Mediterranean sea, shadowed by speedboats and drones, before being stopped.
Israel, which had said last week it would prevent the group from reaching Gaza with a symbolic gesture of aid, said the crew would be taken to the Israeli Port of Ashdod.
Katz said the crew would there be shown ‘the video of the horrors’ of the Hamas-led attack on Israel.
He said it was ‘appropriate’ the crew see ‘what atrocities [Hamas] committed against women, the elderly, and children, and against whom Israel is fighting to defend itself’.
The video reportedly contains 43 minutes of ‘uncensored’ footage of ‘people being massacred and bodies mutilated during the onslaught’, per the Times of Israel.
After diverting the boat, Israel’s foreign ministry posted a picture of the activists all in orange life jackets being offered water and sandwiches.
The foreign ministry derided what it called the ‘selfie yacht’ carrying ‘celebrity’ activists, saying the aid onboard would be transferred to Gaza through what it called ‘real humanitarian channels’.
On Sunday, Katz said the blockade, in place since years before the Israel-Hamas war, was needed to prevent Palestinian militants from importing weapons.
The Madleen departed from Italy on June 1.
At around 3.02am local time on Sunday (1.02am BST), Israel ‘forcibly intercepted’ the vessel as it was approaching Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said in a statement.
‘If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters,’ Thunberg said in a pre-recorded video shared by the coalition.
The Israeli government had vowed to prevent the ‘unauthorised’ ship from breaching the naval blockade of Gaza, urging it to turn back.
The FFC had said earlier that the ship had come ‘under assault in international waters’.
‘Quadcopters are surrounding the ship, spraying it with a white paint-like substance. Communications are jammed, and disturbing sounds are being played over the radio,’ the coalition wrote on Telegram.
Activist Yasmin Acar shared video from the vessel showing a white substance on the deck. She said it had been dropped on the Madleen.
Acar was later heard saying it was affecting her eyes. It was unclear what the substance was.
Israel’s foreign ministry stressed in a statement today that all crew members were ‘safe and unharmed’.
It said that it expected the activists to return to their home countries.
‘The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,’ it added.
‘While Greta and others attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity — and which included less than a single truckload of aid — more than 1,200 aid trucks have entered Gaza from Israel within the past two weeks, and in addition, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has distributed close to 11 million meals directly to civilians in Gaza.
‘There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip – they do not involve Instagram selfies.
