A Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla aimed at breaking Israel\u2019s naval blockade has been intercepted by the Israeli military, days after the detention of activists on an earlier flotilla led to international outrage and widespread protests<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Nine sailing vessels flying Italian and French flags and a motor ship registered in Timor-Leste were intercepted and boarded starting at 4.34am on Wednesday in international waters roughly 120 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza<\/a>, the group\u2019s organisers the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) and Thousand Madleens to Gaza said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It came as 82 parliamentarians from the Council of Europe parliamentary assembly and the European parliament called for the immediate and unconditional release of activists from the earlier Gaza Sumud flotilla (GSF) held last week by Israel<\/a>. At least seven of the more than 450 people detained remain in custody, according to Israeli media reports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe urge all governments, international organisations and the international community to condemn the interception of the Global Sumud flotilla and abduction\/detention of humanitarian civilians in international waters,\u201d the parliamentarians said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The latest flotilla, which set sail from Turkey, was carrying doctors, nurses and journalists on a ferry converted into a floating hospital, plus medicines, respiratory equipment and nutritional supplies intended for Gaza\u2019s health facilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The flotilla\u2019s live tracker<\/a> said that by 10am on Wednesday all the vessels had been intercepted. A statement from the organisers said the Israeli military had no jurisdiction in international waters and the flotilla posed no harm. It said its crews had been \u201ckidnapped\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The statement said: \u201cThis seizure is a blatant violation of international law and defies the binding orders of the international court of justice, which call for unhindered humanitarian access to Gaza. Our volunteers are not subject to Israeli jurisdiction and cannot be criminalised for taking part in a humanitarian mission aimed at delivering aid or for sailing in international waters. Their detention is arbitrary, unlawful and must end immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed it had intercepted the boats and that those onboard would be transferred to an Israeli port to be processed and then deported. \u201cAnother futile attempt to breach the legal naval blockade and enter a combat zone ended in nothing,\u201d it said in a social media post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Turkey\u2019s foreign ministry described the incident as an \u201cact of piracy\u201d and said all initiatives were being taken for Turkish citizens held by Israel to be freed and returned to Turkey, and that it was coordinating with other countries regarding their citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Those detained include M\u00e9lissa Camara, a French MEP. \u201cIsrael has once again violated international law,\u201d she said in a statement sent by her assistant. \u201cWhat happened is in fact an act of abduction \u2013 targeting individuals whose sole aim was to help end the illegal blockade of Gaza, while sailing in international waters that are clearly not under Israeli jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Last week Israel intercepted about 40 vessels<\/a> and detained more than 450 activists including the Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg. Some activists have alleged being subjected to physical and verbal abuse<\/a> by Israeli forces and being denied medical care during their detention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thunberg said after arriving back in Sweden on Tuesday: \u201cPersonally I don\u2019t want to share what I was subjected to, I don\u2019t want there to be quotes about that Greta was tortured because that isn\u2019t what the story is here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI could talk about all the children who can\u2019t go to school. About all the children amputated. Of all the children who have become parentless. About all the homes that have been bombed down. I could also talk about the extreme physical abuse and the torture that we were subjected to in prison.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Israel\u2019s foreign ministry has dismissed all claims of mistreatment of members of the flotilla as \u201cbrazen lies\u201d, posting on social media: \u201cAll the detainees\u2019 legal rights are fully upheld.\u201d It said Thunberg \u201cdid not complain to the Israeli authorities about any of these ludicrous and baseless allegations \u2013 because they never occurred\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n David Adler, a US activist, described a \u201cfive-day nightmare of serial and systematic violation of our most basic rights\u201d in an audio statement after his release from Israeli detention on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe were intercepted illegally and violently by Israeli naval forces,\u201d Adler said. \u201cWe were kidnapped, stripped, zip-tied, blindfolded and sent to an internment camp, on a police van, without any access to food, water or legal support. And for the next five days, on and off, we were psychologically tortured.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Oxford PhD student said conditions at Ketziot, a high-security jail in the Negev desert, \u201cwere not at all normal prison conditions\u201d. He said: \u201cFrom the first moment that we stepped on to that tarmac after interception, we were violently forced on to our knees into positions of submission \u2026 We were denied the most basic things, like critical access to insulin for diabetic detainees that were part of the flotilla. In short, we were treated as terrorists, just as [the Israeli] national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, had promised.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, South African activists, including Nelson Mandela\u2019s grandson Mandla Mandela, said on arrival back in South Africa that they had been treated more harshly owing to their government\u2019s case at the international court of justice accusing Israel of genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fatima Hendricks and Zaheera Soomar said their hijabs were forcibly removed and they were made to strip naked in front of Israeli soldiers, something they said did not happen to female Muslim activists from other countries.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ben-Gvir has said he was \u201cproud\u201d of the way staff behaved at Ketziot. He said in a statement on the activists: \u201cThey should get a good feel for the conditions in Ketziot prison and think twice before they approach Israel again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Reference Link:- https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2025\/oct\/08\/israel-intercepts-another-gaza-aid-flotilla-amid-criticism-over-treatment-of-activists; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" New group of vessels intercepted in international waters while at least seven people from previous flotilla still held Lorenzo Tondo in Palermo, Miranda Bryant in Stockholm and Geneva AbdulWed 8 Oct 2025 16.28 BSTShare A Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla aimed at breaking Israel\u2019s naval blockade has been intercepted by the Israeli military, days after the detention of activists on an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[23749,23848,1737,10003,24228,1510,5392,17576,4935],"class_list":["post-25210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-aside","hentry","category-sample-category","tag-famine-2","tag-flotilla-2","tag-gaza-2","tag-genocide-2","tag-humanity-at-risk","tag-israel-2","tag-israeli-brutalities-2","tag-palestine-2","tag-war-crimes-2","post_format-post-format-aside"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25211,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25210\/revisions\/25211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gsrra.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Greta](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/2735fa231ccf96659c8932566e14cf2a6303a4b5\/0_443_900_719\/master\/900.jpg?width=460&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=1a84944366cef183979d5a98dd94a04c\")
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