Israel claims to have diverted Greta Thunberg’s “celebrities yacht”

Israel says it diverted a Gaza-bound boat on Monday after the activists onboard, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, said they were intercepted as they sought to provide relief to the blockaded Palestinian territory.

The Madleen departed from Italy on June 1 to bring awareness to food shortages in Gaza, which the United Nations has referred to as the “hungriest place on Earth”.

The Israeli government had directed its forces to stop the “celebrities yacht” from reaching Gaza.

AFP lost contact with the activists onboard the Madleen early Monday morning after the organisers said alarms sounded and life jackets were being prepared.

“If you see this video we have been intercepted and kidnapped in international waters,” Thunberg said in a pre-recorded video shared by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the activist group operating the vessel.

“I urge all my friends, family and comrades to put pressure in the Swedish Government to release me and the others as soon as possible.”

Other communications filtering out from the Madleen described the tactics used by the vessels intercepting the boat as it drew nearer to the Gaza coast.

“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 crew on board the Madleen said on Instagram and X.

In a statement, the coalition said the Israeli military intercepted the Madleen around 3:02 am local time Monday just off the coast of Gaza.

Israel’s foreign ministry said it had redirected the boat towards Israeli shores, and expected those onboard to return to their home countries.

“All the passengers of the ‘selfie yacht’ are safe and unharmed. They were provided with sandwiches and water,” the ministry posted on X.

“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,” the ministry added.

Thunberg was joined by Game of Thrones actor Liam Cunningham and Rima Hassan, a French MEP, on board aiming to raise awareness of the ongoing crisis in the region.

Israel is facing mounting international pressure to allow more aid into Gaza, after a more than two-month total blockade led to widespread shortages of food and basic supplies.

It has recently started working with the newly formed, US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) to distribute aid via a handful of centres in south and central Gaza.

But humanitarian agencies have criticised the GHF and the United Nations refuses to work with it, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality.

Dozens of people have been killed near GHF distribution points since late May, according to Gaza’s civil defence agency.

It said Israeli attacks killed at least 10 people on Sunday, including five civilians hit by gunfire near an aid distribution centre.

‘Risked their lives’ for food

Civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal and witnesses said the civilians had been heading to a site west of Rafah, in southern Gaza, run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.

Witness Abdallah Nour al-Din told AFP that “people started gathering in the Al-Alam area of Rafah” in the early morning.

“After about an hour and a half, hundreds moved toward the site and the army opened fire,” he said.

The Israeli military said it fired on people who “continued advancing in a way that endangered the soldiers” despite warnings.

The GHF said in a statement there had been no incidents “at any of our three sites” on Sunday.

It said it had distributed more than a million meals, including more than 600,000 through a trial of “direct to community distribution” via “community leaders”.

Outside Nasser Hospital, where the emergency workers brought the casualties, AFPTV footage showed mourners crying over blood-stained body bags.

“I can’t see you like this,” said Lin al-Daghma by her father’s body.

She spoke of the struggle to access food aid after more than two months of a total Israeli blockade of Gaza, despite a recent easing.

At a charity kitchen in Gaza City, displaced Palestinian Umm Ghassan told AFP she had been unable to collect aid from a GHF site “because there were so many people, and there was a lot of shooting. I was afraid to go in, but there were people who risked their lives for their children and families”.

- Sinwar -

Also on Sunday, the Israeli military said it had located and identified the body of Mohammed Sinwar, presumed Hamas leader in Gaza, in an “underground tunnel route beneath the European Hospital in Khan Yunis”, in southern Gaza.

The military, which until Sunday had not confirmed his death, said Israeli forces killed Sinwar on May 13.

Sinwar was the younger brother of slain Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, accused by Israel of masterminding the 2023 attack that triggered the war.

The Hamas attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 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.

After the deaths of several Hamas leaders, Mohammed Sinwar was thought to be at the heart of decisions on indirect negotiations with Israel.

The military said that alongside Sinwar’s body, forces had found “additional intelligence” at the Khan Yunis site “underneath the hospital, right under the emergency room”.

Experts said he likely took over as the head of Hamas’s armed wing, the Ezzedine al-Qassam Brigades, after its leader Mohammed Deif was killed by Israel.

The Palestinian group has remained tight-lipped over the names of its top ranks.