The Japan Times - Israel says Gaza-bound aid boat activists awaiting deportation

The activist group departed Italy on June 1 aboard the Madleen carrying food and supplies for Gaza, whose entire population the UN has warned is at risk of famine.

Israeli forces intercepted the boat in international waters on Monday and towed it to the port of Ashdod.

"The passengers of the 'Selfie Yacht' arrived at Ben Gurion Airport to depart from Israel and return to their home countries," the Israeli foreign ministry said on X.

"Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority."

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the activist group operating the vessel, said all 12 campaigners were "being processed and transferred into the custody of Israeli authorities".

"They may be permitted to fly out of Tel Aviv as early as tonight," it said on social media.

Video released earlier by the group showed the activists with their hands up as Israeli forces boarded the vessel, with one of them saying nobody was injured.

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, was damaged in international waters off Malta as it headed to Gaza, with the activists saying they suspected an Israeli drone attack.

A 2010 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.

On Sunday, Defence Minister Israel Katz 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 185 kilometres (115 miles) west of the coast of Gaza, according to coordinates from the coalition.

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 on Monday 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.

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

In Gaza City on Monday, displaced Palestinian Umm Mohammed Abu Namous told AFP 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 2023 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.

M.Saito--JT