Israeli forces seized a yacht bound for Gaza on Monday and forced its crew of pro-Hamas activists, including former teen climate crusader Greta Thunberg, to watch footage of the October 7 massacre while they were in detention.
Thunberg and her crew were headed for Gaza aboard a boat named Madleen, memorably dubbed the “selfie yacht” by the deeply unimpressed Israeli Foreign Ministry.
Israeli government spokesman David Mencer said the boat carried a “meager cargo” of goods, as a pretext for billing itself as a humanitarian aid mission. Mencer said the cargo would be sent to Gaza, while the grandstanding activists would be sent home.
“There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip. They do not involve Instagram selfies. The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the ‘celebrities’ will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels,” he said.
“To poor Greta, we say, who is really feeding Gaza, and who is feeding their own ego. When it comes to this flotilla, it wasn’t a flotilla, it was a selfie yacht. It was Instagram activism,” Mencer said.
“They were provided with sandwiches and water. The show is over,” he said.
The rest of the crew included six French nationals, including a French-Palestinian member of the European Parliament named Rima Hassan, plus citizens of Brazil, Spain, and Turkey, and an Irish actor named Liam Cunningham who appeared in the HBO series Game of Thrones.
The Times of Israel (TOI) chronicled the brief voyage of the selfie yacht:
The vessel had defied repeated warnings issued by Israel to turn around since it departed Sicily last Sunday. The last reported location of the vessel was at 1:15 a.m. local time, just north of Egypt’s Port Said, around 55 nautical miles from Israeli-administered waters. At around 3 a.m., as it approached Gaza, it was intercepted by the Navy’s Shayetet 13 commando unit and the Snapir harbor security unit, a military official told The Times of Israel.
Before it was boarded, it was given a final opportunity to change course, both by the Foreign Ministry and the Navy, but again refused.
“The Gaza maritime zone remains an active conflict area, and Hamas has previously exploited sea routes for terrorist attacks, including the October 7th massacre,” warned the Foreign Ministry, which provided periodic updates in English throughout Sunday night and Monday morning.
The Israeli Navy tried using loudspeakers to tell the Madleen it could lawfully dock and deliver its supplies at the port of Ashdod, but the activists refused to change course, instead posting social media video of themselves conducting “emergency drills” and sounding “alarms” as Israeli drones buzzed overhead.
The sponsors of the Madleen mission, an anti-Israel group called the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, claimed the crew had been “kidnapped by Israeli forces” after their social media feeds went dark and began running pre-recorded videos of the activists pleading for help. The TOI noted these videos were intended to compare the detained activists to the Israeli hostages held by Hamas.
Fortunately for Thunberg and her crew, they were not treated the way Hamas handles its hostages. Instead, the Israeli government released video of the detainees in good spirits as they chowed down on pastrami sandwiches:
Their spirits might have dimmed a bit after Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz ordered the detainees to screen a 43-minute video documenting the massacre and mutilations performed by Hamas during its October 7, 2023, attack on Israeli civilians, precipitating the Gaza war ostensibly opposed by the Madleen activists.
WATCH the Aftermath of Hamas Attack on Israeli Kindergarten on October 7, 2023:
“It’s appropriate that Greta the antisemite and her Hamas-supporting friends should see exactly who is the terror group Hamas that they support and act on behalf of, what atrocious acts they carried out on women, the elderly and kids, and who Israel is fighting for its defense against,” said Katz.
Katz was even more harshly critical of the Madleen stunt than Mercer, denouncing it as a “hate flotilla” and “Hamas propaganda.”
“I congratulate the IDF for the quick and safe takeover of the ‘Madleen’ flotilla to prevent them from breaking the blockade and reaching the shores of Gaza,” he said.
The U.N. “special rapporteur” for the Palestinians, Francesca Albanese, responded by urging more ships to follow Thunberg’s course and challenge the Gaza blockade.
“Madleen’s journey may have ended, but the mission isn’t over. Every Mediterranean port must send boats with aid and solidarity to Gaza,” she said.
Albanese has a record of making public statements supporting Hamas and encouraging terrorism against Israel, including declaring at a Hamas conference in 2022, “you have a right to resist.”
The government of Turkey was especially critical of the interception, denouncing the boarding of the Madleen as a “clear violation of international law.”
“This heinous attack by the Netanyahu government, which also threatens freedom of navigation and maritime security, has once again proven that Israel is a terrorist state,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
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