{"id":95550,"date":"2025-07-27T01:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-27T01:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/95550\/"},"modified":"2025-07-27T01:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-27T01:54:10","slug":"israel-seizes-handala-flotilla-bringing-aid-baby-formula-to-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/95550\/","title":{"rendered":"Israel Seizes \u2018Handala\u2019 Flotilla Bringing Aid, Baby Formula to Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA civilian ship carrying aid to Palestinians<\/a> in Gaza<\/a> was intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters on Saturday, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition confirmed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Handala flotilla was carrying baby formula, diapers, food, and medicine. The passengers were detained and the cargo was seized. The coalition said the boat was intercepted \u201cin international waters outside Palestinian territorial waters off Gaza, in violation of international maritime law.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIsrael<\/a> has no legal authority to detain international civilians aboard the Handala,\u201d Ann Wright, a member of the Freedom Flotilla\u2019s steering committee, said in a statement<\/a>. \u201cThis is not a matter of internal Israeli jurisdiction. These are foreign nationals operating under international law in international waters. Their detention is arbitrary, unlawful, and must end.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThis week, the United Nations\u2019 World Food Program said the famine<\/a> in Gaza has reached<\/a> \u201cnew and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row.\u201d According to<\/a> the Gaza Ministry of Health, there have been 40 hunger-related deaths this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMore than 100 aid agencies and rights groups have warned<\/a> of a \u201cmass starvation\u201d across Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is no one in Gaza now outside the scope of famine, not even myself,\u201d Dr. Ahmed al-Farra, who leads the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital in Gaza, told The New York Times<\/a>. \u201cI am speaking to you as a health official, but I, too, am searching for flour to feed my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThere were 21 civilians from 12 countries on the flotilla, including Christian Smalls, the former president of the Amazon Labor Union; European Union Parliament member Emma Fourreau; human rights attorney Huwaida Arraf; and two Al Jazeera journalists. The crew members said they would go on hunger strike if they were to be abducted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIsraeli officials have ignored the International Court of Justice\u2019s binding orders that require the facilitation of humanitarian access to Gaza,\u201d the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement. \u201cThe continued attacks on peaceful civilian missions represent a grave violation of international law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tArraf was among a group of activists who sought to travel on an aid flotilla to Gaza last spring, when the population was already considered to be at imminent risk of famine<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe can\u2019t sit by and let it happen,\u201d Arraf told Rolling Stone<\/a> at the time. \u201cPeople have been marching in the millions around the world, and still our governments are not listening to the people. And so we\u2019re taking that protest to the sea and we\u2019re directly challenging Israel\u2019s closure policy \u2014 the siege, the blockade, which are unlawful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tDuring that attempt, Turkish port authorities blocked the ships<\/a> from leaving.<\/p>\n

\n\tSince the deadly Hamas<\/a>-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel has led a brutal siege on Gaza and a near-total blockade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIsrael has tightly restricted the flow of humanitarian aid, arguing that Hamas had been stealing aid provided through the U.N. According to a Times report on Saturday, military officials admitted that Israel had no proof<\/a> for such claims. The U.S. Agency for International Development, the foreign aid bureau shuttered by President Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s administration, similarly found<\/a> no evidence that Hamas was regularly stealing assistance to Gaza, according to ABC News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn recent months, Israel has been accused, in several instances, of indiscriminately<\/a> firing<\/a> on Gazans<\/a> attempting to get food at operations run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation<\/a>, a recently created aid group backed by Israel and the Trump administration.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n

\n\tIsrael\u2019s military said Saturday it would begin<\/a> airdropping aid into Gaza and implementing<\/a> humanitarian pauses for the delivery of aid this weekend. However, the Israeli military has killed more than 1,000 people trying to get food since May, mainly near aid sites, according to<\/a> the United Nations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThis is a deliberate and human-made disaster,\u201d Joseph Belliveau, executive director of MedGlobal, a charity working in Gaza, told NPR<\/a>. \u201cThose children died because there is not enough food in Gaza and not enough medicines, including IV fluids and therapeutic formula, to revive them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tIn June, the Israeli military intercepted another humanitarian aid ship<\/a> from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Among those captured were climate activist Greta Thunberg and European Parliament member Rima Hassan. Thunberg was deported<\/a> the next day. Hassan spent three days<\/a> in Israeli custody, including time in solitary confinement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOver the years, Israel has tried various methods to stop us,\u201d Arraf, the human rights attorney, told Democracy Now<\/a> on Friday. \u201cIt has been very violent, from attacking, beating, abducting, arresting, jailing and even killing our volunteers. In 2010, a flotilla that\u2026 I was on, Israel killed 10 of our volunteers. But that did not stop us. And it\u2019s not going to stop us now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A civilian ship carrying aid to Palestinians in Gaza was intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":95551,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[69,31236,70,4527,99,50,31235],"class_list":{"0":"post-95550","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-famine","10":"tag-gaza","11":"tag-hamas","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-palestinians"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114922708181667439","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95550"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95550\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}