Israeli troops kill at least 17 in Gaza, say local officials, as Greta Thunberg deported
"Palestinians reportedly killed while trying to reach food sites, after Madleen aid yacht crew taken into custody
Israeli troops killed at least 17 Palestinians trying to reach food distribution sites on Tuesday morning, local health authorities in Gaza said, as Israeli authorities deported Greta Thunberg and at least three other activists who had attempted to sail to the territory with aid.
The Madleen yacht was seized by Israeli authorities on Monday and towed to the port of Ashdod, where the 12 crew members, who also included the French MEP Rima Hassan, were taken into police custody. Some are still in Israel, where they will face deportation hearings.
The ship was attempting to bring a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza, which faces a looming famine after more than 11 weeks of total siege and ongoing severe restrictions on food entering the territory.
Israel has attempted to shift most food distribution away from humanitarian organisations including UN agencies to a secretive US- and Israel-backed logistics startup that has never worked in a conflict zone at scale.
Dozens of people have been killed as they tried to collect food from the handful of sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which are secured by armed guards and under the protection of the Israeli military.
The latest deaths came early on Tuesday morning when Israeli gunfire killed at least 17 people and injured dozens more as they approached a site in central Gaza, health authorities in the territory said.
The GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Israeli military said it was aware of reports of injuries after it fired warning shots towards “suspects” in the Wadi Gaza area whom its troops deemed a threat. “The warning shots were fired hundreds of meters from the aid distribution site, prior to its opening hours,” a spokesperson said. The military said the numbers released by local health authorities did not align with the information they had collected.
Israel has been under heavy international pressure over hunger in Gaza, with the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, announcing that he had lifted the siege after warnings from longstanding friends of Israel that the “starvation crisis” there was damaging Israel’s international standing.
In an apparent response to the huge amount of publicity generated by the Madleen even before it set sail, Israel’s foreign ministry on Monday attacked the crew as “celebrities” on a “selfie yacht”.
After Israeli forces took control of the boat, it posted an image of Thunberg being offered food and claimed she was “in good spirits” while she was held incommunicado.
In a video prepared before the boat was intercepted Thunberg said that if she lost communication supporters should assume she had been kidnapped and advocate for her release.
The boat arrived in the port city of Ashdod after dark fell, where its crew were given a choice between consenting to deportation or staying in police custody and facing a tribunal.
All rejected the claim that they had entered Israel illegally, because Israeli forces seized the boat in international waters then brought them to an Israeli port by force. Some chose to sign strategically, so they could leave and advocate for the others when they are brought to court.
Israel’s foreign ministry shared pictures of Thunberg boarding a morning flight to France, and said the other crew members were being held at Ben Gurion airport.
Although they were never expected to reach Gaza, whose shores are guarded by Israel’s navy, the ship intensified international focus on hunger in Gaza.
The UN has been able to bring only limited supplies of flour into Gaza since Israel lifted a total siege three weeks ago, and most of that had been taken by starving Palestinians or looted by armed gangs before the UN could distribute it, the deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said on Monday.
The UN has been allowed to transport 4,600 metric tonnes of wheat flour into Gaza for the last three weeks. If shared equally that would provide about one week’s supply of bread to the roughly 2.3 million people living in Gaza, under WFP guidelines, but it would need to be eaten with other food to meet minimum daily calorie needs.
Haq said aid groups in Gaza estimated that between 8,000 and 10,000 tonnes of wheat flour were needed to give each family in Gaza a bag and ease desperation."
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