Israel deports Greta Thunberg after seizing ship

Is­rael de­port­ed ac­tivist Gre­ta Thun­berg on Tues­day, a day af­ter the Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized by the Is­raeli mil­i­tary.

Speak­ing up­on ar­rival in Paris en route to her home coun­try of Swe­den, Thun­berg called for the re­lease of the oth­er ac­tivists who were de­tained aboard the Madleen. She de­scribed a “quite chaot­ic and un­cer­tain” sit­u­a­tion dur­ing the de­ten­tion.

The con­di­tions they faced “are ab­solute­ly noth­ing com­pared to what peo­ple are go­ing through in Pales­tine and es­pe­cial­ly Gaza right now,” she said. The trip was meant to protest Is­raeli re­stric­tions on aid to Gaza’s pop­u­la­tion of over 2 mil­lion peo­ple af­ter 20 months of war, ac­cord­ing to the Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion, the group be­hind the jour­ney.

“We were well aware of the risks of this mis­sion,” Thun­berg said. “The aim was to get to Gaza and to be able to dis­trib­ute the aid.” She said the ac­tivists would con­tin­ue try­ing to get aid to Gaza.

On Mon­day, U.S. Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump called Thun­berg “a young an­gry per­son” and rec­om­mend­ed she take anger man­age­ment class­es.

“I think the world need a lot more young an­gry women,” Thun­berg said Tues­day in re­sponse.

Thun­berg said it ap­peared she was head­ed back to Swe­den, hadn’t had ac­cess to a phone in a few days and want­ed a show­er. The ac­tivists were held sep­a­rate­ly and some had trou­ble ac­cess­ing lawyers, she added.

Asked why she agreed to de­por­ta­tion, she said, “Why would I want to stay in an Is­raeli prison more than nec­es­sary?”

Thun­berg called on sup­port­ers to ask their gov­ern­ments “to de­mand not on­ly hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid be­ing let in­to Gaza but most im­por­tant­ly an end to the oc­cu­pa­tion and an end to the sys­temic op­pres­sion and vi­o­lence that Pales­tini­ans are fac­ing on an every­day ba­sis.”

She said rec­og­niz­ing Pales­tine is “the very, very, very min­i­mum” that gov­ern­ments can do to help.

Oth­er ac­tivists face de­por­ta­tion

Thun­berg was one of 12 pas­sen­gers on the Madleen. Is­raeli naval forces seized the boat with­out in­ci­dent ear­ly Mon­day about 200 kilo­me­tres (125 miles) off Gaza.

The Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion, along with rights groups, said Is­rael’s ac­tions in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters were a vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law. Is­rael re­jects that charge, say­ing such ships in­tend to breach what it ar­gues is a law­ful naval block­ade of Gaza.

Is­rael viewed the ship as a pub­lic­i­ty stunt, call­ing it the “self­ie yacht” with a “mea­gre” amount of aid that amount­ed to less than a truck­load.

The Free­dom Flotil­la Coali­tion said three ac­tivists, in­clud­ing Thun­berg, had been de­port­ed along with a jour­nal­ist. It said it had en­cour­aged some to do it so they could speak freely about their ex­pe­ri­ences.

“Their de­ten­tion is un­law­ful, po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed and a di­rect vi­o­la­tion of in­ter­na­tion­al law,” the coali­tion said in a state­ment. Eight oth­er pas­sen­gers re­fused de­por­ta­tion and are be­ing de­tained at Givon prison in Ram­le. On Tues­day, Is­raeli au­thor­i­ties heard their cas­es at a de­ten­tion tri­bunal.

“We ar­gued to­day, and that al­so was em­pha­sized by all the ac­tivists, that their goal is to en­ter hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid to Gaza, to end the famine and to end a geno­cide in Gaza,” said Lub­na Tu­ma, a lawyer with le­gal rights group Adalah, who is rep­re­sent­ing the ac­tivists. “Any vi­o­la­tion or any pro­hi­bi­tion to en­ter­ing the hu­man­i­tar­i­an aid to Gaza is deep­en­ing the com­plic­i­ty of Is­rael in the famine in Gaza.”

Le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tives for the group said that be­cause Is­raeli seized their ves­sel in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters and forcibly trans­port­ed them to Is­raeli ter­ri­to­ry, Is­rael had no au­thor­i­ty to de­tain or de­port them.

‘Pi­rate at­tack’

Sabine Had­dad, a spokes­woman for Is­rael’s In­te­ri­or Min­istry, said the ac­tivists who were be­ing de­port­ed Tues­day had waived their right to ap­pear be­fore a judge. The oth­ers have a hear­ing with the judge and will be held for 96 hours be­fore be­ing de­port­ed, she said.

Ri­ma Has­san, a French mem­ber of the Eu­ro­pean Par­lia­ment who is of Pales­tin­ian de­scent, was among the pas­sen­gers. She has pre­vi­ous­ly been barred from en­ter­ing Is­rael be­cause of her op­po­si­tion to Is­raeli poli­cies to­ward the Pales­tini­ans. It was not clear whether she was be­ing im­me­di­ate­ly de­port­ed or de­tained.

French For­eign Min­is­ter Jean-Noel Bar­rot said one of the de­tained French ac­tivists signed an ex­pul­sion or­der and would leave Tues­day. The oth­er five re­fused. He said all the ac­tivists re­ceived con­sular vis­its.

Ser­gio Toribio, a Span­ish ac­tivist, slammed Is­rael’s ac­tions af­ter he ar­rived in Barcelona.

“It is un­for­giv­able, it is a vi­o­la­tion of our rights. It is a pi­rate at­tack in in­ter­na­tion­al wa­ters,” he told re­porters.

Block­ade of Gaza

Pales­tini­ans in Gaza are now al­most com­plete­ly de­pen­dent on in­ter­na­tion­al aid.

Is­rael and Egypt have im­posed vary­ing de­grees of a 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.

Dur­ing the 20-month-long war in Gaza, Is­rael has re­strict­ed and some­times blocked all aid in­to the ter­ri­to­ry, in­clud­ing food, fu­el and med­i­cine. Ex­perts say that pol­i­cy has pushed Gaza to­ward famine. Is­rael as­serts that Hamas siphons off the aid to bol­ster its rule.

Hamas-led mil­i­tants killed around 1,200 peo­ple, most­ly civil­ians, in the Oct. 7, 2023, at­tack that ig­nit­ed the war and took 251 hostages, most re­leased in cease­fire agree­ments or oth­er deals. Hamas still holds 55 hostages, more than half 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.

JERUSALEM (AP) —