CAIRO: Israel’s military has seized the Freedom Flotilla’s Handala ship and detained its 21 crew members as they attempted to break the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.
International activists aboard the aid ship that set sail from Italy en route to Gaza said in a post on X that the vessel had been intercepted. The Israeli foreign ministry said on X that naval forces “stopped the vessel from illegally entering the maritime zone of the coast of Gaza,” that it was being taken to Israeli shores and all passengers were safe.
In a video broadcast live by the crew of the ship, Israeli soldiers were seen forcefully boarding the vessel, after which the live transmission was cut off. A short time before the Israeli forces took control of the ship, one of the women onboard, Emma Fourreau, who is a French-Swedish member of the European Parliament, wrote on X (formerly Twitter) that the Israeli military had arrived.
According to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the ship was forcibly stopped by the Israeli military in international waters, approximately 40 nautical miles from Gaza. The Israeli forces turned off the cameras installed on the ship, after which all communication with Handala was lost.
Israel said it resumed aid airdrops to Gaza on Saturday and was taking several other steps to ease the humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian enclave, amid mounting international pressure and warnings from relief agencies of starvation spreading there.
The Israeli military said “humanitarian corridors” would be established for safe movement of United Nations convoys delivering aid to Gazans and that “humanitarian pauses” would be implemented in densely populated areas. The announcement came after indirect ceasefire talks in Doha between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas were broken off with no deal in sight. The Israeli military said in a statement that the airdrops would be conducted in coordination with international aid organizations and would include seven pallets of aid containing flour, sugar, and canned food. Palestinian sources confirmed that aid has begun dropping in northern Gaza.
Israel’s foreign ministry said the military would “apply a ‘humanitarian pause’ in civilian centers and in humanitarian corridors” on Sunday morning. It provided no further details. International aid organizations say mass hunger has now arrived among Gaza’s 2.2 million people, with stocks running out after Israel cut off all supplies to the territory in March, then reopened it in May but with new restrictions.
