Is­raeli forces seized a Gaza-bound aid boat and de­tained Gre­ta Thun­berg and oth­er ac­tivists who were on board ear­ly Mon­day, en­forc­ing a long­stand­ing block­ade of the Pales­tin­ian ter­ri­to­ry that has been tight­ened dur­ing the war with Hamas.

The ac­tivists had set out to protest Is­rael’s on­go­ing mil­i­tary cam­paign in the Gaza Strip, which is among the dead­liest and most de­struc­tive since World War II, and its re­stric­tions on the en­try of hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid, both of which have put the ter­ri­to­ry of some 2 mil­lion Pales­tini­ans at risk of famine.

The Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion, which had or­gan­ised the voy­age, said the ac­tivists were “kid­napped by Is­raeli forces” while try­ing to de­liv­er des­per­ate­ly need­ed aid to the ter­ri­to­ry.

“The ship was un­law­ful­ly board­ed, its un­armed civil­ian crew ab­duct­ed, and its life-sav­ing car­go — in­clud­ing ba­by for­mu­la, food and med­ical sup­plies — con­fis­cat­ed,” it said in a state­ment. It said the ship was seized in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters some 200 kilo­me­tres (120 miles) from Gaza.

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.”

It said the ac­tivists would re­turn to their home coun­tries and the aid would be sent to Gaza through es­tab­lished chan­nels. It cir­cu­lat­ed footage of what ap­peared to be Is­raeli mil­i­tary per­son­nel hand­ing out sand­wich­es and wa­ter to the ac­tivists, who were wear­ing or­ange life vests.

Lt. Col. Na­dav Shoshani, an Is­raeli mil­i­tary spokesper­son, said the ship was still en route to Is­rael around mid­day Mon­day. It was ex­pect­ed to dock at the port of Ash­dod.

A week­long voy­age

Thun­berg, a cli­mate cam­paign­er, was among 12 ac­tivists aboard the Madleen, which set sail from Sici­ly a week ago. Along the way, it had stopped on Thurs­day to res­cue four mi­grants who had jumped over­board to avoid be­ing de­tained by the Libyan coast guard.

“I urge all my friends, fam­i­ly and com­rades to put pres­sure on the Swedish gov­ern­ment to re­lease me and the oth­ers as soon as pos­si­ble,” Thun­berg said in a pre-record­ed mes­sage re­leased af­ter the ship was halt­ed.

Ri­ma Has­san, a French mem­ber of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment who is of Pales­tin­ian de­scent, was al­so among the vol­un­teers on board. She has been barred from en­ter­ing Is­rael be­cause of her op­po­si­tion to Is­raeli poli­cies to­ward the Pales­tini­ans.

She was among six French cit­i­zens aboard the boat. French Pres­i­dent Em­manuel Macron asked Is­rael to al­low them to re­turn to France as soon as pos­si­ble, his of­fice said in a state­ment.

Adalah, a rights group in Is­rael that said it was rep­re­sent­ing the ac­tivists, said Is­rael had “no le­gal au­thor­i­ty” to take over the ship be­cause it was in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters and be­cause it was head­ed not to Is­rael but to the “ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters of the state of Pales­tine.”

“The ar­rest of the un­armed ac­tivists, who op­er­at­ed in a civil­ian man­ner to pro­vide hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid, amounts to a se­ri­ous breach of in­ter­na­tion­al law,” Adalah said in a state­ment.

Af­ter a 2½-month to­tal block­ade aimed at pres­sur­ing Hamas, Is­rael start­ed al­low­ing some ba­sic aid in­to Gaza last month, but hu­man­i­tar­i­an work­ers and ex­perts have warned of famine un­less the block­ade is lift­ed and Is­rael ends its mil­i­tary of­fen­sive.

An at­tempt last month by Free­dom Flotil­la to reach Gaza by sea failed af­ter an­oth­er of the group’s ves­sels was at­tacked by two drones while sail­ing in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters off Mal­ta, or­gan­is­ers said. The group blamed Is­rael for the at­tack, which dam­aged the front sec­tion of the ship.

An 18-year block­ade

Is­rael and Egypt have im­posed vary­ing de­grees of block­ade on Gaza since Hamas seized pow­er from ri­val Pales­tin­ian forces in 2007. Is­rael says the block­ade is need­ed to pre­vent Hamas from im­port­ing arms, while crit­ics say it amounts to col­lec­tive pun­ish­ment of Gaza’s Pales­tin­ian pop­u­la­tion.

Is­rael sealed Gaza off from all aid in the ear­ly days of the war ig­nit­ed by the Hamas-led at­tack on south­ern Is­rael on Oct. 7, 2023, but lat­er re­lent­ed un­der U.S. pres­sure. In ear­ly March, short­ly be­fore Is­rael end­ed a cease­fire with Hamas, the coun­try again blocked all im­ports, in­clud­ing food, fu­el and med­i­cine.

Hamas-led mil­i­tants killed around 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, in the Oct. 7 at­tack and ab­duct­ed 251 hostages, most of whom have since been re­leased in cease­fire agree­ments or oth­er deals. Hamas is still hold­ing 55 hostages, more than half of them be­lieved to be dead.

Is­rael’s mil­i­tary cam­paign has killed more than 54,000 Pales­tini­ans, ac­cord­ing to the Gaza Health Min­istry, which doesn’t dis­tin­guish be­tween civil­ians and com­bat­ants but has said women and chil­dren make up most of the dead.

The war has de­stroyed vast ar­eas of Gaza and dis­placed around 90% of the ter­ri­to­ry’s pop­u­la­tion, leav­ing peo­ple there al­most com­plete­ly de­pen­dent on in­ter­na­tion­al aid.

Ef­forts to bro­ker an­oth­er truce have been dead­locked for months. Hamas says it will on­ly re­lease the re­main­ing hostages in ex­change for a last­ing cease­fire and an Is­raeli with­draw­al, while Is­rael has vowed to con­tin­ue the war un­til all the cap­tives are re­turned and Hamas is de­feat­ed or dis­armed and ex­iled.

JERUSALEM (AP) —