Swedish activist Greta Thunberg has been deported from Israel, one day after she and the rest of the Madleen crew were stopped from sailing to Gaza and were detained by Israeli authorities.
Addressing the media after landing in Paris on Tuesday night (local time), the 22-year-old accused Israel of kidnapping her and the other activists in international waters, adding they were “brought against our own will into Israel”.
She also said she had refused to sign a document stating she entered Israel illegally.
“We were 12 peaceful volunteers sailing on a civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid on international waters. We did not break laws. We did nothing wrong,” Thunberg said, per Reuters.
She stressed she and the others on the 12-person Madleen crew had been simply attempting to bring much-needed aid into the war-torn region, which saw an 11-week blockade and more than 600 days of war.
The British-flagged aid ship operated by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition was seized by Israeli authorities on Monday around 200 kilometres off the coast of Gaza and taken to the port of Ashdod. It had left Italy on June 1, carrying aid like baby formula, rice, women’s sanitary products, and medical supplies.
According to Adalah, a legal rights group in Israel representing the activists, Thunberg, two other activists and a journalist had agreed to be deported and leave Israel. Meanwhile, the others — including Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan — refused deportation.
Adalah said Israel is treating all 12 individuals as if they “illegally entered” the country, despite forcibly detaining them in international waters and transferring them into Israeli territory against their will, per Al Jazeera.
The crew was informed on Tuesday (local time) that Israel had imposed a 100-year entry ban on each of them in hearing held over five hours, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a post on X.
As reported by The Guardian, Thunberg said the conditions faced by the Madleen crew were “absolutely nothing compared to what people are going through in Palestine and especially Gaza right now” although she was pretty worried about her fellow crew members.
Calling for their immediate release, she said she was “very clear” in her testimony that they were kidnapped on international waters.
“This is yet another intentional violation of rights that is added to the list of countless other violations that Israel is committing,” she said.
Sergio Toribio, a fellow crew member who was deported to Spain on Tuesday, echoed the sentiment.
“It is unforgivable, it is a violation of our rights. It is a pirate attack in international waters,” he told reporters after arriving in Barcelona.
Al Jazeera reporter Omar Faiad, who was also on the Madleen and deported by Israel, said after his arrival in Paris: “We were incarcerated for three consecutive days, denied the right to contact anybody, even lawyers…
“We were then coerced to sign a bunch of documents. None of us know the content of these documents. The French consul advised me to sign a paper in order to be able to fly, so I did.”
The Israeli foreign ministry has dismissed the Madleen’s voyage to Gaza as a “selfie yacht”, and announced in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday that the passengers had been transferred to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.
“Those who refuse to sign deportation documents and leave Israel will be brought before a judicial authority, in accordance with Israeli law, to authorize their deportation,” it said.
On Tuesday night, the ministry said Thunberg — a climate activist who has long shunned air travel — had “just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden (via France)” along with posting a photo of her sitting on a plane.
The seizure of the vessel has drawn international criticism, with Amnesty International described Israel’s interception of the Madleen and detention of the crew as flouting international law.
“By forcibly intercepting and blocking the Madleen which was carrying humanitarian aid and a crew of solidarity activists, Israel has once again flouted its legal obligations towards civilians in the occupied Gaza Strip and demonstrated its chilling contempt for legally binding orders of the International Court of Justice,” said Amnesty International’s secretary general, Agnès Callamard in a statement.
“The operation carried out in the middle of the night and in international waters violates international law and put the safety of those on the boat at risk. The crew were unarmed activists and human rights defenders on a humanitarian mission, they must be released immediately and unconditionally. They must also be protected from torture and other ill-treatment pending their release.”
Paris-based non-profit Reporters Without Borders (RSF) also condemned the detention of the crew, which included journalists Yanis Mhamdi and Omar Faiad of Al Jazeera.
“Boarding a civilian vessel in international waters to intercept a crew that included two French journalists documenting a peaceful humanitarian initiative is not only illegal, but constitutes a serious violation of international law and press freedom,” RSF’s director general Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement.
“RSF calls on the French authorities to act without delay to secure their location and release, and urges the international community to firmly condemn this latest attack on journalism.”
Israel has imposed a naval blockade on Gaza since 2007, and has tightened its grip significantly since October 7, 2023 when Hamas-led militants killed over 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, by Israeli tallies.
According to Gaza health officials, nearly 55,000 Palestinians have since been killed in Israel’s retaliatory offensive, while the region has been largely destroyed and razed.
Food security experts also warned the Israeli blockade implemented in March meant nearly half a million Palestinians were living in “catastrophic” levels of hunger while a million others could barely get enough food.
Lead image: Getty
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