Israel’s navy on Wednesday night began to intercept the large flotilla attempting to break its maritime blockade on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, after the military issued a final warning for the pro-Palestinian fleet to change course.
The Israeli Navy operation, which came as the country marked Yom Kippur, continued overnight and into Thursday morning.
Forces of the Shayetet 13 naval commando unit had boarded at some 40 of the 47 ships in the Global Sumud Flotilla by mid-morning Thursday, detaining the hundreds of activists aboard after jamming their signals.
At least four of the flotilla’s vessels were stuck at sea due to various technical problems, unrelated to the military’s actions.
The Navy was set to detain the activists on those boats as well or tow them to the port. Contrary to claims made by some activists — based on wrong tracking information — none of the flotilla’s vessels managed to reach the Israeli-controlled waters off the coast of Gaza, the military asserted.
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the terms
One of the first boats to be boarded was carrying Greta Thunberg, with the Foreign Ministry sharing a video of an Israeli soldier handing her belongings to her after she was detained.
Flotilla activists, including Greta Thunberg are seen being transported to Israel after their vessels were intercepted by the IDF on October 2, 2025 (Foreign Ministry)
“Already several vessels of the Hamas-Sumud flotilla have been safely stopped and their passengers are being transferred to an Israeli port. Greta and her friends are safe and healthy,” the ministry said.
Once brought to Israel, the activists are to be deported.
French politician Marie Mesmeur and Franco-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan reported that their boats were also intercepted. Livestream footage showed activists throwing their phones into the sea after soldiers boarded a ship.
Already several vessels of the Hamas-Sumud flotilla have been safely stopped and their passengers are being transferred to an Israeli port.
Greta and her friends are safe and healthy. pic.twitter.com/PA1ezier9s
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 1, 2025
The flotilla — which departed from Spain a month ago — is carrying a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid for Gaza and over 500 people, according to the organizers, some of whom Israel has accused of having ties to Hamas.
The Foreign Ministry published a video of a naval lieutenant speaking over a radio to the activists, warning they were “approaching a blockaded zone.”
An Israeli Navy patrol boat is seen near vessels of the Sumud Global Flotilla in the Mediterranean Sea, October 1, 2025. (Screen capture/X)
“If you wish to deliver aid to Gaza, you may do so through the established channels. Please change your course toward the Port of Ashdod, where the aid will undergo a security inspection and then be transferred into the Gaza Strip,” she said.
The ministry’s call to transfer the aid to Gaza through other channels was echoed by other European governments, including Italy, which along with Spain had sent a navy ship to follow the flotilla for part of its journey but stopped as they got closer to Gaza’s shores.
The sole purpose of the Hamas-Sumud flotilla is provocation. Israel, Italy, Greece, and the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem have all offered and continue to offer the flotilla a way to peacefully deliver any aid they might have to Gaza. The flotilla refused because they are not… pic.twitter.com/pLQj1FLIPA
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) October 1, 2025
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani confirmed the Israeli intervention and told state TV Rai that the activists would be deported in the coming days.
He also said Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar told him that the Israel Defense Forces was instructed “not to use violence.”
Activists are seen on boats part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, as they are intercepted by the Israeli Navy, in the early hours of October 2, 2025. (Screen capture/YouTube)
The Sirius, Alma and Adara boats were intercepted some 70 nautical miles (80 miles) from the coast of Gaza, according to organizers who shared live positions of the flotilla, well into Israel’s declared exclusion zone extending 150 nautical miles off Gaza, where the navy has previously stopped ships attempting to break the blockade.
The activists’ group, which includes Nelson Mandela’s grandson, Mandla Mandela, former Barcelona Mayor Ada Colau and several European lawmakers, said it remained undeterred in its mission to break the Israeli blockade and bring aid to Palestinians.
An Israeli soldier detains Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg aboard a ship in the Global Sumud Flotilla of anti-Israel activists, in video released by the Foreign Ministry on October 1, 2025. (X screenshot)
Greg Stoker, an American veteran aboard the Ohwayla, one of the boats in the flotilla, said that 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 posted on Instagram. Israeli authorities used water cannons against some of the boats, Stoker and other activists said, but that nobody was harmed.
Shortly before troops began boarding the boats, Palestinian terrorists fired five rockets from northern Gaza at Ashdod. Four of the rockets were intercepted by air defenses, and one landed in an open area, according to the Israel Defense Forces.
There were no reports of injuries or damage.
Activists are seen on boats part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, shortly before being intercepted by the Israeli Navy, October 1, 2025. (Screen capture/YouTube)
The navy’s interception of the flotilla came after organizers rejected the calls to transfer the aid and vowed to press on toward Gaza, which has been devastated in the nearly two years of fighting sparked by Hamas’s devastating invasion of southern Israel, decrying what it called “intimidation” tactics by the Israeli military.
The organizers said on X that they remained “vigilant as we enter the area where the previous flotillas were intercepted and/or attacked.”
Israel blocked similar attempts in June and July.
Members of the group of ships of the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza are seen moored at the small island of Koufonisi, south of the island of Crete, on September 26, 2025. (Eleftherios ELIS / AFP)
Israel and Egypt have imposed varying degrees of blockade on Gaza since the Hamas terror group seized power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007 in a violent coup.
Israel said it was necessary to limit Hamas’s ability to smuggle in arms. Critics of the blockade said it amounted to collective punishment of Gaza’s roughly 2 million Palestinians.
Israel has come under huge international pressure over its war in Gaza. The war started on October 7, 2023, when thousands of Hamas-led terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
The war has sparked a humanitarian crisis in the Strip, with most of the population displaced.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 66,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it had killed over 22,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,600 terrorists inside Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
