Israel has intercepted a boat with pro-Palestinian activists who say they were bringing aid to Gaza. They claim they were illegally detained in international waters. Israel said the vessel was nearing a restricted area. Gaza has been under an Israeli naval blockade since 2009 to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons.
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00:00And here to tell us more, it's DW's Jerusalem correspondent Tanya Kramer.
00:03Tanya, the boat has been intercepted. What happens now?
00:10Yeah, well, this all happened in the early morning hours, and we heard first from the activists,
00:15they putting out a message that they were surrounded by the Israeli Navy.
00:20Israeli officials here then said they had called on the boat to change their course,
00:25and then shortly later, apparently, the medlein was then raided by the Israeli army and then boarded,
00:34and the activists basically there detained, and it's now being towed to the Ashtod port in southern Israel.
00:44It's there then when, from what we understand here from Israeli officials,
00:48and the passengers will be brought on shore, and they will be then deported back to their home countries.
00:56Now, the activists had said that they were still in international waters when this happened, according to them,
01:03and they called this an illegal detention and a boarding of the ship.
01:09So, what else are both sides saying about how this incident unfolded?
01:14Well, it's quite interesting, you know, there are two narratives here, and, you know, it's a bit of a war of words,
01:23a lot of what we are hearing from Israeli officials.
01:27They have been calling, mocking this in a way as a selfie yacht,
01:33that the boat, the medlein, doesn't have actually a lot of humanitarian aid,
01:38and that they should go through the, what they call the normal channels.
01:41We also heard from the defense minister, Israel Katz.
01:47He has ordered that the passengers will be, should be shown once they arrive in Israel.
01:55A video, a documentary, basically, that was shown to a lot of journalists and diplomats
02:01from a body cam from Hamas militants from October 7 to show the atrocities,
02:06so they would understand what happened on October 7.
02:09Now, activists have said they know they don't have a huge amount of humanitarian aid
02:15on this rather small vessel, but they want to make a point and telling the world,
02:21reminding everyone here what's going on in Gaza,
02:24and they have called on others to follow with that
02:27and to send more boats and ships with aid to Gaza.
02:33This maritime blockade has been in place for many, many years.
02:37Have there been any previous attempts to challenge it?
02:42Yes, absolutely.
02:44As you said, the naval blockade is not something that just happened now during the war.
02:48This has been in place at least for, you know, over almost now two decades,
02:55since at least when Hamas took over in 2007 in Gaza.
03:01We have seen other flotillas trying to breach this blockade,
03:06notably in 2010, a convoy, so to speak, of ships trying to breach the blockade
03:14with the Mavi Marmara, an incident where nine people were killed
03:17when the Israeli military boarded this ship.
03:22This was a Turkish, mainly Turkish activists on board of this ship.
03:26We saw another smaller flotilla actually going through,
03:29but many others have not been able to breach this blockade,
03:34which is, you know, has been detrimental for Gaza fishermen to go out
03:40and fish in the sea before, on the coast of Gaza.
03:46So all what these activists are trying to do, you know,
03:49is in this tradition to try to reach the Gaza shores,
03:52but I think they also knew they will probably be intercepted,
03:57but for them it was mostly a symbolic move as well
04:00to show that what's going on in Gaza is not acceptable.
04:05Tanya Kramer in Jerusalem. Thanks so much, Tanya.