After IDF intercepts Greta Thunberg’s Gaza flotilla, crew posts videos calling themselves ‘kidnapped’

JTA – Swedish climate and human rights activist Greta Thunberg (22), who had set sail from Sicily to Gaza with 11 other activists, was flown out of Israel on Tuesday, 10 June.

“Greta Thunberg just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden [via France],” Israel’s Foreign Ministry wrote in a post on X alongside two photos of the young activist aboard a plane.

Thunberg, who refused to depart Israel voluntarily and was deported, apparently avoids air travel, choosing to sail around the world instead.

Thunberg claimed in a video after the boat was intercepted that she and her fellow activists had been “kidnapped” by Israel.

On arrival in Israel, the activists refused to watch a video showing the atrocities committed by the Hamas terror group on 7 October 2023, according to Defence Minister Israel Katz.

The Israeli navy intercepted the boat carrying Thunberg and other activists who were staging a protest against Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

The interception came early on 9 June, a week after the Madleen set sail from Sicily, and followed vows by the Israeli government, which derided the group as the “selfie yacht”, not to allow the ship to reach Gaza.

Shortly after their arrests, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the non-profit organisation that has staged dozens of efforts to reach Gaza to protest against Israel, posted prerecorded videos on X showing the crew members saying that they had been “kidnapped”. They called on their home governments to put pressure on Israel to release them.

For many, pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian voices alike, the videos and language echoed the plight of the Israeli hostages in Gaza. Hamas and other groups took more than 250 hostages on 7 October 2023, and dozens remain in Gaza, including 20 who are thought to remain alive.

Five prominent pro-Palestinian Instagram accounts, with more than one million followers among them, appeared to further the comparison with a joint post that said, in all-caps, “Release the hostages now”, followed by a list of the passengers on the Madleen.

Israel released its own footage after the raid at sea, showing an officer offering Thunberg bread. Israeli officials said the boat and its occupants would be taken to the port of Ashdod, where the aid it carried would be distributed through regular aid channels and the activists would be deported to their home countries. The boat carried activists from at least half a dozen countries, including Sweden, France, and Spain.

Katz said he had instructed the army to screen a 47-minute film about the atrocities committed by Hamas when it invaded southern Israel on 7 October, inaugurating the current war in Gaza.

“It’s appropriate that the antisemitic Greta and her fellow Hamas supporters see exactly who the Hamas terrorist organisation they came to support and for whom they work is, what atrocities it committed against women, the elderly, children, and against whom Israel is fighting to defend itself,” Katz tweeted.

The flotilla comes shortly after aid distribution in Gaza resumed after a two-month blockade by the Israeli army, during which no aid entered the Palestinian enclave. A new joint United States-Israeli aid distribution organisation has been plagued by chaos, violence, interruptions, and criticism since it launched last month. Israeli officials said early on Monday that the foundation had nonetheless served 11 million meals in Gaza during that period.