Trump-Gaza latest: Israel says ‘last opportunity’ for Palestinians to leave Gaza City as Hamas reviews 20-point peace plan

Israeli forces have intercepted boats carrying aid bound for Gaza, in the latest attempt by foreign activists to break an Israeli blockade and deliver supplies to the Palestinian territory.

In the past, activists detained by Israel were not criminally prosecuted, and instead their presence was treated as an immigration matter.

When Thunberg’s previous flotilla was intercepted in June, she and three other activists signed deportation orders waiving the right to delay their removal for a period of 72 hours so they could appeal and were immediately ejected from the country.

Those who refused to sign the orders were detained near Tel Aviv airport and appeared before a tribunal which upheld their deportation orders and ordered their removal.

All those deported were banned from returning to Israel for 100 years, legal reps said.

Suhad Bishara, the organisation’s legal director, told Reuters the crews would be identified and transferred to the immigration authority to process them for anticipated deportation, before being moved into custody, likely in Ketziot Prison in southern Israel.

This is the moment Greta Thunberg was detained by the Israeli military after her Gaza aid vessel was intercepted late on Wednesday.

The Global Sumud Flotilla was intercepted as vessels made their approach on Gaza to deliver aid to the war torn Palestinian enclave.

Israel’s foreign ministry said Greta and fellow activists were “safe and healthy”.

Thousands of students in Spain were set to strike in as many as 40 cities on Thursday over the situation in the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

“The mobilisation, called by the Student Union, has left classrooms in many secondary schools almost empty”, with the exception of younger students, El País reports.

The president of the Murcia principals’ association told the outlet some 80 per cent of students at her school were on strike.

Corresponding protests have also been called at universities.

Israeli forces have intercepted 39 boats carrying aid and foreign activists, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, to Gaza, leaving only one vessel still sailing towards the Palestinian enclave, the flotilla organisers said on Thursday.

The Global Sumud Flotilla’s tracking website showed four vessels travelling with the grouping in the region on Thursday morning.

The Marinette, Mikeno, Shireen and Summertime-Jong were still reported to be sailing today, of a total 44 vessels.

Twenty one were marked as having been intercepted, with the rest ‘assumed intercepted’ at the time of writing.

Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu said he backed the plan, which would ultimately see Hamas replaced by a transitional government, the hostages in Gaza returned, and Israel ultimately withdraw from the Gaza Strip. Trump gave Hamas “three to four” days to respond.

Dr Andreas Krieg, associate professor of defence studies at King’s College London, told The Independent that, as it stands, Trump and Netanyahu stand to profit most from the plan.

For Trump, the creation of a “Board of Peace” to oversee the transitional government with himself at its head “presents the optics of a historic breakthrough and places him at the centre of the process”, Dr Krieg said.

“Netanyahu, meanwhile, has secured revisions that allow Israel to withdraw only in phases, tied to strict security benchmarks, while retaining a permanent buffer zone on Gaza’s borders. So, there are sufficient pretexts already built in for him to usurp the plan.”

Dr Krieg said the proposal would also yield talking points to reassure his coalition at home.

For Hamas, the plan “amounts to an existential threat: it demands the organisation’s dissolution, the destruction of its arsenal and the exclusion of its cadres from any future role in Gaza’s governance”.

“Yet Hamas has historically sought to amend rather than wholly reject proposals, and there is scope for the political leadership abroad to explore a partial acceptance of certain elements,” he added.

Spain’s foreign minister said on Thursday that he had summoned Israel’s Charge d’Affaires over the GSF flotilla interception overnight.

Jose Manuel Albares said on Spanish National Television (TVE) that he had told the highest-ranking diplomat that Spanish citizens travelling on the flotilla are “peaceful Spanish citizens in solidarity, whose objective was solely and exclusively humanitarian, who did not and do not represent any threat to Israel or anyone else, and who were exercising a basic right under international law”.

Albares confirmed there are 65 Spanish citizens among the detainees.

He said they have “full diplomatic and consular protection” from the Spanish foreign ministry.

A woman onboard the Gaza aid flotilla has said activists have to “accept they might die” as their ship nears the coast of the war-torn territory.

After entering the “high-risk zone” on Tuesday night, activists said the flotilla was “aggressively circled” by an Israeli warship which “steered dangerously close” to the vessels. The IDF has not commented on the incident.

More than 150 children have died in Gaza due to acute malnutrition since the start of Israel’s invasion into the strip, a majority in 2025, according to the latest figures from Palestinian health authorities.

Gaza’s malnutrition crisis has reached catastrophic levels, according to Unicef’s communication manager Tess Ingram, who said the strip’s entire child population under five, which includes over 320,000 children, are at risk of acute malnutrition.

In July alone, she said, 13,000 children were acutely malnourished, making it “the highest monthly figure ever recorded”.

“This war must end now. Aid must be allowed into the Gaza Strip, including food and nutrition supplies. Humanitarians must be allowed to do their jobs,” Ms Ingram said. “The children of Gaza are being punished by these decisions and it’s killing them”.