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Israel said Monday it deported 171 activists detained during an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, including Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, as it continues to remove hundreds of international participants from the seized convoy.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said on X that “171 additional provocateurs from the Hamas–Sumud flotilla, including Greta Thunberg, were deported today from Israel to Greece and Slovakia.”
The ministry said the deportees were citizens of several countries, including Greece, Italy, France and the United States, and posted photos showing Thunberg and two women walking through Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport wearing the grey tracksuits issued in Israeli prisons.
It added that 138 activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla remain in Israeli custody.
The 45-vessel flotilla was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and challenge Israel’s 18-year blockade of the enclave, where the United Nations says famine has taken hold after nearly two years of devastating war.
Israeli naval forces began intercepting the flotilla in international waters late Wednesday. An Israeli official said Thursday that boats carrying more than 400 people on board had been prevented from reaching the Palestinian territory.
International activists deported to Istanbul over the weekend said they had been subjected to violence and “treated like animals” while in Israeli detention.
In its post on Monday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry said “all the legal rights of the participants in this PR stunt were and will continue to be fully upheld,” calling the activists’ allegations “part of their pre-planned fake news campaign.”
According to The Guardian, Thunberg told Swedish officials she had been held in a cell “infested with bedbugs” and given insufficient food and water.
Separately, Turkish activist Ersin Celik told Anadolu Agency that Israeli forces “severely tortured Greta before our eyes” and “made her crawl and kiss the Israeli flag.”
Israel has previously deported about 170 activists, most to Istanbul, with smaller groups sent to Italy and Spain, according to the Israeli legal center Adalah.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, part of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition, had included more than 470 activists from over 50 countries.
Israel has maintained its blockade on Gaza, home to 2.4 million people, since 2007.
Since October 2023, Israeli bombardments have killed more than 67,200 Palestinians, most of them women and children, according to Gaza health officials. The relentless strikes and siege have rendered the enclave uninhabitable, with widespread famine and disease spreading, the United Nations says.
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