'Greta and her friends are safe and healthy,' ministry says as Israel intercepts Gaza aid flotilla

At least 20 Israeli military vessels boarded a flotilla of nearly 50 boats carrying humanitarian aid toward Gaza on Wednesday night, intercepting the convoy roughly 75 miles off the coast as activists — including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and several European lawmakers — attempted to breach Israel's maritime blockade.

Thunberg, who was on the Alma, was arrested, according to Israeli authorities.

"Already several vessels of the Hamas-Sumud flotilla have been safely stopped and their passengers are being transferred to an Israeli port," the Israeli Foreign Ministry said in a social media post on Wednesday.

"Greta and her friends are safe and healthy," the ministry stated. It reiterated its offer to transfer the aid to Gaza through other channels.

Prior to the arrests, activists said that the IDF had intercepted the Alma and Sirius vessels.

Greg Stoker, one of the activists on board one of the boats in the flotilla, said around a dozen naval vessels with their transponders off had approached it.

"They are currently hailing our vessels, telling us to turn off our engines and await further instructions or our boats will be seized and we will face the consequences," he said in a shaky video while wearing a red life jacket.

Israel urges flotilla to turn back

Prior to the interception, Israel's Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar called the flotilla a provocation and warned them to stop and transfer their aid through other channels into Gaza.

"It is not too late," he said in a post on X.

Israel's government has accused the flotilla of being linked to Hamas, providing documents it said were found in Gaza proving a link between the militant group and the initiative. Although Euronews could not verify their authenticity, they were consistent in language and tone with previous Hamas communiques.

Activists have firmly rejected the accusations and said Israel was trying to justify potential attacks on them.

European governments, including Spain and Italy, which sent their navy ships to escort the flotilla during part of its journey, urged the activists to turn back and avoid a confrontation.

While Italy's Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said late on Tuesday that the flotilla's actions risked undermining US President Donald Trump's recent proposal for ending the war in Gaza, Spain's premier defended them.

"We must remember it is a humanitarian mission that wouldn’t be taking place if the Israeli government had allowed for the entry of aid," Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez told reporters on Wednesday.

"They present no threat nor danger to Israel," he said.

What does the international maritime law say?

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea stipulates that a state only has jurisdiction up to 12 nautical miles (the equivalent of 19 kilometres) from its shores.

In general, states don’t have the right to seize ships in international waters, though armed conflict is an exception to this.

Yuval Shany, an expert on international law at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said that as long as Israel’s blockade of Gaza is “militarily justified” and the ship intended to break the siege, Israel can intercept the vessel without prior warning.

Whether the blockade is justified militarily or legally is a point of contention.

Israel imposed an indefinite blockade on Gaza since Hamas took control of the Strip in 2007, in what it said was to prevent the transfer of weapons and military supplies to the territory.

However, the flotilla argued that it was a civilian, unarmed group and that the passage of humanitarian aid is guaranteed under international law.

Omer Shatz, an Israeli international law expert who teaches at Sciences Po University in Paris and co-litigated a previous flotilla case before the Israeli Supreme Court, said that even if the disputed siege of Gaza was considered lawful, "international law paves a humanitarian road from the high seas to Gaza — both in international and national waters off Gaza."

"If the basic needs of the population are not provided by the occupying power, there is a right to provide humanitarian aid, albeit under certain conditions," Shatz said.

Israel, for example, would have a right to board and search the vessels carrying aid to verify its cargo, similarly to what it does with aid trucks crossing into Gaza by land.