Drones surrounded the Madleen yacht and dropped a “white irritant substance” before soldiers boarded around 2am BST, according to the group behind her mission.
Ms Thunberg and 11 other passengers from the Madleen are being taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has been ordered to show them a video of Hamas’s Oct 7 attack before they are deported.
Israel’s foreign ministry portrayed the voyage as a public relations stunt, saying in a post on X that “the ‘selfie yacht’ of the ‘celebrities’ is safely making its way to the shores of Israel”.
“The show is over,” it added.
Footage shows Israeli military personnel handing out sandwiches and water to the activists, who were wearing orange life vests.
Ms Thunberg, 22, a prominent climate campaigner, was joined by other pro-Gaza activists, including Liam Cunningham, the Game of Thrones actor, and European parliamentarian Rima Hassan.
Israel’s foreign ministry said “Greta and others attempted to stage a media provocation whose sole purpose was to gain publicity” while transporting “less than a single truckload of aid”.
“There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip — they do not involve Instagram selfies,” the statement read. “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.”
Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, called on Israel to release the activists “immediately” and urged boats across the Mediterranean to sail to Gaza in solidarity.
“They shall sail together – united, they will be unstoppable,” she wrote on X.
Ms Thunberg had departed (from) Sicily a week ago on the sail-boat, which was loaded with food and medical supplies, with the aim of breaking Israel’s sea blockade of Gaza. Along the way, it rescued four migrants who had jumped overboard to avoid being detained by the Libyan coastguard.
Israel Katz, the Israeli defence minister, said on Sunday that the military would “take whatever measures necessary” to stop Ms Thunberg’s yacht docking in Gaza. On Monday morning, Mr Katz congratulated the Israeli navy for stopping “anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas supporters” and “instructed the IDF to show the flotilla passengers the video of the horrors of the October 7 massacre”.
“It is appropriate that the anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas supporters see exactly who the Hamas terrorist organisation they came to support and for whom they work is, what atrocities they committed against women, the elderly, and children, and against whom Israel is fighting to defend itself.”
A top comment at the moment on the Telegraph
- The Israelis should film Greta Thunberg as she watches the video of the October 7th atrocities and then release her reaction to the world at large. If she refuses to watch we will all draw our own conclusions.
