A Gaza-bound aid boat reached Israel's Ashdod port this evening after being intercepted by Israeli forces, preventing the dozen activists on board, including Swediash campaigner Greta Thunberg, from reaching the blockaded Palestinian territory.
The Madleen, which organisers said was intercepted in international waters overnight, reached the port north of Gaza at around 8:45pm local time, escorted by the Israeli navy.
The Madleen set sail from Italy on 1 June to raise awareness of food shortages in Gaza, which the United Nations has called the "hungriest place on Earth".
After more than 20 months of war, triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas's 7 October, 2023 attack on Israel, the UN has warned that Gaza's entire population is at risk of famine.
At around 4,02am this morning, Israeli troops "forcibly intercepted" the vessel as it approached Gaza, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said.
"If you see this video, we have been intercepted and kidnapped," Ms Thunberg said in pre-recorded footage shared by the coalition.
Video from the group shows the activists with their hands up as Israeli forces boarded the vessel, with one of them saying nobody was injured prior to the interception.
Israel's foreign ministry, in a post on social media, said "all the passengers of the 'selfie yacht' are safe and unharmed", adding it expected the activists to return to their home countries.
Turkey condemned the interception as a "heinous attack" and Iran denounced it as "a form of piracy" in international waters.
In May, another Freedom Flotilla ship, the Conscience, reported it was struck by drones in an attack the group blamed on Israel. In 2010, an Israeli commando raid on the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, which was part of a similar attempt to breach the naval blockade, left 10 civilians dead.
Defence Minister Israel Katz last night said the blockade, in place for years before the Israel-Hamas war, was needed to prevent Palestinian militants from importing weapons.
Journalists on board
The Madleen was intercepted about 185km west of the coast of Gaza, according to coordinates from the coalition.
French President Emmanuel Macron requested that the six French nationals aboard the boat "be allowed to return to France as soon as possible", a presidential official said.
Two of them are journalists, Omar Fayyad of Qatar-based Al Jazeera and Yanis Mhamdi who works for online publication Blast, according to media rights group Reporters Without Borders, which condemned their detention and called for their "immediate release".
Al Jazeera "categorically denounces the Israeli incursion", the network said in a statement, demanding the reporter's release.
Adalah, an Israeli NGO offering legal support for the country's Arab minority, said the activists on board the Madleen had requested its services, and that the group was likely to be taken to a detention centre before being deported.
Israel is facing mounting pressure to allow more aid into Gaza to alleviate widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.
In what organisers called a "symbolic act", hundreds of people launched a land convoy from Tunisia with the aim of reaching Gaza.
'Our children are dying'
Israel recently allowed some deliveries to resume after barring them for more than two months and began working with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
But humanitarian agencies have criticised the GHF and the United Nations refuses to work with it, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality.
Watch: Tracker shows Madleen's position before seizure by Israeli forces
Dozens of people have been killed near GHF distribution points since late May, according to Gaza's civil defence agency.
In Gaza City, displaced Palestinian Umm Mohammed Abu Namous said that she hopes "that all nations stand with us and help us, and that we receive 10 boats instead of one".
"We are innocent people," she said. "Our children are dying of hunger... We do not want to lose more children because of hunger."
The Hamas attack that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 54,880 people, the majority civilians, have been killed in the territory since the start of the war. The UN considers these figures reliable.
Out of 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
Watch: Gaza-bound aid boat carrying Greta Thunberg reaches Israeli port
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'World turning a blind eye to Gaza'
Tánaiste Simon Harris said the Madleen was a "powerful symbol of the urgent and essential need to end the blockade on humanitarian aid".
"The UN and humanitarian organisations must be allowed to work independently and do their job. It is a shame on the world and international community that people are starving in Gaza.
"The question we should be asking today is not a debate about the merits or not of the flotilla but how it has come to this; that the world is turning a blind eye to starving children in Gaza," Mr Harris said in a statement.
Healthcare worker Caoimhe Butterly is currently in Sicily as part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition's coordination team.
Speaking to RTÉ's Drivetime, she said they have not heard from anyone on board since the seizure.
However, she said they have been in touch with Embassy staff from a number of countries of their respected nationalities and everyone is reported to be in good health.
Ms Butterly said all of the coalition's missions have been framed under international law and it is not the first time they have had a ship seized.
She said Israel's accusation that the mission was a publicity stunt is a distraction from what is taking place in Gaza.
Former IDF soldier Joel Carmel said the blockade was "nothing new" and has been going on for many years.
Speaking to RTÉ's Six One News, he said it was a "great shame" that it had come to this instead of simply providing aid to the people of Gaza.
He accused the Israeli military of using Palestinians as human shields and of forced displacement of people.
He said the current war is not being fought to bring home the remaining hostages, but rather as a war of revenge.
"I'm trying very hard to convince the Israeli public that what is going on now in Gaza and what has been going on since the beginning of the occupation is not in the security interests of the state of Israel," he said.
"Killing tens of thousands of people in Gaza, starving millions - many of them to death - is not something that is keeping Israelis safe."
