June 10, 2025 • 18 mins
An aid ship sailing to Gaza was intercepted by Israel this week. Its passengers, including Greta Thunberg, claimed they had been kidnapped, while Israel said it was providing consular assistance to facilitate the crew's deportation home. In today’s deep dive, we’ll explain the aid ship at the centre of global headlines this week, and take you through the latest on this story.
Hosts: Emma Gillespie and Billi FitzSimons
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily oas it's Wednesday,
the eleventh of June. I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm beliefit.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Simon's an AID ship sailing to Gaza was intercepted by
Israel this week and its passengers, including Greta Tunberg, claimed
they had been kidnapped. Israel said it was providing consular
assistance to facilitate the deportation of the crew of what
it called a selfie yacht to return to their home countries.
(00:41):
In today's deep Dive, we are going to explain what's
going on with this story and take you through the
latest developments. It's dominated headlines, especially over a long weekend
for the rest of us here at home, so we
want to take you through it today.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And like you said, this has dominated global headlines over
the long weekend. It was absolutely everywhere on Monday when
the crew members claimed that they had been kidnapped. It
is a complex one. Let's start with the ship at
the center of it all. What do we need to
know about that?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, so we're talking about a ship called the Madeleine,
which departed southern Italy on the first of June. It
was carrying medical supplies and food bound for Gaza. Now,
the ship is led by an organization called the Freedom
Flotilla Coalition. It's an activist group that says it's campaigning
for freedom of movement for all Palestinians and quote to
(01:36):
end Israel's Gaza blockade, which it calls illegal.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So they were carrying AID, right, Yeah, exactly, and that
is in light of this blockade that you mentioned. What
do we need to know about the blockade?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, So this all stems back to the ceasefire deal
that you might remember was agreed between Hamas and Israel
back in January. Now, that ceasefire was meant to have
three phases, and the first phase end on the first
of March. Now, negotiations for the remaining phases have been
ongoing for months, but in the meantime, Israel had blocked
(02:09):
AID from reaching Gaza. Now, this was in a move
that's been condemned by UN agencies. International governments, including Australia
and Israel, said the blockade was to pressure Hamas to
release the remaining Israeli hostages who are still being held
in Gaza. On the note of a delivery to Gaza.
(02:29):
It defended the amount of aid flowing into Gaza in
recent days. It's claimed that more than twelve hundred AID
trucks have entered the strip from Israel within the past
two weeks, and in addition to those deliveries, it said
that close to eleven million meals have been issued directly
to civilians through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation the GHF. Now
(02:51):
that is a US and Israeli backed NGO.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Okay, So this blockade started in March when the ceasefire ended.
What has happened since then?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So since then we've seen this global criticism of the
blockade itself. The World Health Organization says the entire population
of Gaza, two point one million people, is now facing
prolonged food shortages, with nearly half a million people in
what the WHO call a quote catastrophic situation of hunger,
acute maltrition, starvation, illness, and death. It says three quarters
(03:26):
of Gaza's population are in emergency or catastrophic food deprivation,
and the UN has labeled Israel's decision to block aid
as a quote cruel collective punishment of Palestinians, and it
says that AID should never be a bargaining.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Chip okay, and what about the Freedom Flotilla Coalition the FFC,
when did they get involved.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
So as this kind of at tension within the global
community ramped up, as I mentioned, this flotilla announced it
was preparing a vessel to sail to Gaza with AID
on board, and the FFC said its ship, the Madeline,
which was aimed in twenty fifteen after quote Gaza's only
fisher woman at the time, a symbol of resistance and resilience.
(04:06):
It's not the first vessel that's been sent by the FFC,
or has been attempted to be sent by the FFC
to Gaza. The group actually sent an AID ship called
the Conscience in early May, which it said was attacked
by Israeli drones in international waters off the coast of Malta.
So the FFC called the bombing quote a deliberate act
(04:27):
of aggression and intimidation. Four crew members were injured. It
says the ship was set ablaze, communications were severed and
the vessel was left adrift and taking on water. The
group said the attack occurred in European waters, which was
in violation of international law where the ship remains stranded.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So this is another ship called Conscience that is completely
separate to the one we're talking about today that has
Credit Tumberg on it.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yep, but same organization, so same activist group, same sort
of attempt to s ship aid into.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Gaza, right, but that was also blocked.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yes, that was blocked and essentially destroyed.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Got it, Okay? So then let's talk about the latest
AID ship that it sent. The Madleene is what it's called.
What do we know about its journey and who was
on board? We know that Greta Tunberg was on board.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Right exactly. So the next attempt by this group, since
the Conscience ship was attacked, it says by Israeli drones,
was this Madeleine journey to deliver aid to Gaza. It
actually started making headlines well before it began its journey,
and that's largely because of some of its high profile passengers.
As you've mentioned, Billy all Up, there were twelve volunteers
(05:37):
from multiple countries on the Madeleine. It set sail from
Sicily on the first of June, so that included with
climate justice activist Greta Tunberg, but there was also a
high profile politician, a French Palestinian woman named Rema Hassan.
She's actually a member of the European Parliament. So when
Tunberg announced that she was going to be one of
(06:00):
the twelve passengers sailing to Gaza on this ship, she
said she felt compelled to join out of moral obligation
to fight for a free Palestine. She added, quote, we
are seeing a systematic starvation of two million people. The
world cannot be silent bystanders, and so Greta Tunberg a
very high profile voice in the climate activism space. Once
(06:21):
she was on board, then the headlines kind of followed
and people really started paying attention to this particular journey.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I was going to say, maybe we should have explained
this earlier, but for those I'm sure many people are
familiar with Greta Tunberg. She rose to fame at a
very early age for her activism, particularly in the environmental space,
and now into adulthood, she has also continued that activism
into other areas, including human rights. Exactly when we say
that the ship was carrying aid cargo, what exactly does
(06:51):
that mean?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yes, so the FFC said, specifically, the ship is carrying
what it's called urgently needed supplies for the people in Gaza,
and that includes a whole range of items from baby
formula to flower rice, nappy's, women's sanitary products, water desalination kits,
and a range of medical supplies ranging from crutches to prosthetics.
(07:14):
I do think it is important to flag here that
we're not talking about a huge cargo ship. If you've
seen images of the boat, it's a pretty small sail ship.
The amount of aid it was carrying, though, has been
described as symbolic by the group, So it's not suggesting
that the supplies it has on board will be sufficient
to reach those in needing Gaza. But it's about, they say,
(07:36):
drawing attention to this humanitarian crisis in Gaza, protesting the
Israeli blockade. So the ship is as much of a
protest as it is an aid delivery, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And we're going to keep talking about this, but first
here is a quick message from ours consor. We know
that it never reached its destination. Though what happened It
was on Monday Australia time.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yes, so on Sunday local time we heard from Israeli
Foreign Minister Israel Katz. He said that he had instructed
the Israeli Defense Forces the IDF to quote take whatever
measures are necessary to stop what he called a hate
flotilla from reaching Gaza, then the flotilla itself. So those
on board the passengers shared a series of posts to
(08:21):
social media. They said that drones were spotted flying over
the Madeleine as it approached Gaza, and footage shared from
the ship shows a white substance being sprayed on its windows.
There's videos of the passengers on board the ship throwing
their phones overboard, and we can see the IDF boarding
the vessel, and the FFC has since posted a series
(08:42):
of pre recorded videos from its passengers. Now there's a
range of these videos, but they call on viewers to
pressure their governments to pressure foreign ministries in countries like Spain, France,
Brazil home countries to some of these passengers to keep
those on board safe. Had also among those videos a
statement from Greta Tunberg. She posted a video urging the
(09:05):
Swedish government she is Swedish, to call for her release.
Here's a little bit of what was said in that video.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
If you see this video, we have been intercepted and
kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces or
forces that support Israel, and so her account posted that.
But we know that she herself didn't post that. It
would have been someone with access to her social media.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yes, so these were pre recorded statements, I suppose, you know,
knowing the danger of what they were getting involved in,
the crew kind of preempted a need to have some
kind of a statement ready to go. But the organization
the flotilla itself said that the ship was quote attacked
slash forcibly intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters.
(09:52):
It said the ship was unlawfully boarded and its unarmed
civilian crew was abducted, while the life saving cargo was confiscated.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Israel immediately put out photos and videos of what had
happened on this ship. How did they respond to these
claims that they had kidnapped these crew members.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yes, so we have heard a lot from both sides
involved in this incident. It was Monday morning for us
here in Australia when we got this statement from Israel's
Foreign Ministry. When that came through, it said, quote the
selfie yacht of the celebrities was safely making its way
to the shores of Israel. It said the passengers were
expected to return to their home countries. This was a
(10:33):
really strongly worded statement kind of condemning the action of
the crew and its goal. It called the videos an
attempted publicity stunt over less than a single truckload of
aid and said there are ways to deliver aid to
the Gaza strip they do not involve Instagram selfies. And
Israel also posted a video showing the passengers on a
(10:54):
small boat being given sandwiches and water, and there was
a photo of Tunberg in that kind of release of comments.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Can you just really quickly explain so earlier we mentioned
that there was this blockade, but Israel is saying that
there has been some aid that has been delivered to Gaza.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yes, So this has been kind of a huge point
of contention in the global community, and we talked about
it on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. So,
the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that I mentioned, they are backed
by Israel, backed by US, and the idea is that
they should be from Israel's perspective, responsible for the distribution
of aid in Gaza, a centralized organization to be responsible
(11:36):
for handing out aid from for kind of centralized aid agencies. Now,
the criticism has been that those aid centers are not
necessarily conveniently located for the two million people of Gaza,
that there is a lot of starvation, that there are
people who are nursing serious injuries without medical care, and
that they will not physically be able to get to
(11:59):
those aid centers. There are concerns about the fact that
these centers are manned by a military presence, that there's
facial recognition technology. That's some of the allegations, that there
are privacy concerns. So that's its own kind of set
of issues and seat of kind of conversation mounting on
the other side of this. But Israel and the United States,
(12:21):
it's closest to ally have defended that organization as distributing
adequate aid in the region.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
At the moment, what do we know about these twelve
crew members. Since the IDF intercepted the ship.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So late on Monday night local time, Israeli authorities said
that the boat it continued to call it the selfie yacht,
had docked at Ashdod Port. Now, that's a main cargo
port near the city of Tel Aviv, about forty kilometers
south of Tel Aviv, and Israel said the passengers were
undergoing medical exams to ensure they were in good health.
(12:54):
So that was that update, and then about six hours
later we got another update confirming that the passengers had
all been taken to the International airport in Tel Aviv. There,
Israel's Foreign Ministry says they were met by diplomatic representatives
each from their home countries, and the Foreign Ministry said
that some passengers were pretty much expected to leave within hours. However,
(13:16):
it noted that anyone who refused to sign deportation documents,
so anyone who refused to leave Israel voluntarily, would be
brought before a judicial authority in accordance with Israeli law
to authorize their deportation. So essentially they would launch legal
proceedings to forcibly remove these people from Israel. Now, the
(13:37):
Defense Minister of Israel, Israel Katz, congratulated the IDF for
what he called quote the quick and safe takeover of
the Madeleine flotilla to prevent them from breaking the blockade
and reaching the shores of Gaza. He also wrote in
a post to x that it was important to show
Greta Tunberg and the other passengers quote exactly who the
Hamas terrorist organization they came to support, is, saying he
(14:00):
had instructed the IDF to show the flotilla passengers quote
the video of the horrors of the October seven massacre
when they arrived at the port of Ashdod.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And have we heard from anyone on the flotilla about
these updates?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So we haven't heard from the passengers themselves yet at
the time of recording, but we have received kind of
rolling updates from the FFC as they have kind of emerged.
So when we get responses from Israel, we've typically also
heard from the FFC. They've both been pretty active in
their communication about this incident and the movement of the passengers.
(14:34):
The FFC said the passengers are expected to be moved
to a detention facility unless they agree to leave immediately,
so that lines up with what we heard from the
Foreign Ministry in Israel. FFC lawyers said, though, quote, we're
talking about people who were sailing in international orders and
then Israel basically captured them and abducted them into Israel.
(14:55):
We continue to demand the immediate release of all volunteers
and the return of the stole and aid their detention
is unlawful and a violation of international law. So the
group is continuing claims that the actions of the IDF
and of the Israeli government are unlawful, and I'm sure
we will hear more on that in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
As wev said, this is an international story, particularly because
many of the crew members are from all sorts of
different countries. What has the response from the international community, bin.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yes, so there are a range of countries involved. As
you mentioned, Billy, half of the crew though are French citizens,
and that includes the eu MP who we mentioned earlier
in the episode, and authorities in France say that they
did warn the passengers on board the flotilla of the
risks that they were exposing themselves to The French Foreign
Minister has also said since this incident that he's been
(15:48):
assured by Israel that the crew would receive consular assistance
when they arrived in Tel Aviv. Sweden, where Greta Tunberg
is from, said it's monitoring the situation closely. In terms
of response from the United Nations. Before the trip, the
UN actually said that it was seriously concerned for the
passenger's safety. It said as the Freedom Flotilla coalition's ship
(16:10):
approaches its destination, Israel must adhere to international law and
comply with orders from the International Court of Justice to
ensure unimpeded access for humanitarian aid, so making its position
on the plight of the flotilla pretty clear there. Now,
since the ship was intercepted, we have heard from Francesca Albanesi.
(16:31):
She works for UNRA, which is the UN agency that
works with Palestine and Palestinian refugees. She has urged other
boats to challenge Israel's Gaza blockade, so she's essentially calling
on more boats to do what the Madeleine was attempting
to do. In a post to X, she said Madeleine's
journey may have ended, but the mission isn't over. Every
(16:53):
Mediterranean port must send boats with aid and solidarity to Gaza. Now,
at the time of recording, we are awaiting news on
the movements of all twelve passengers, but we do know
that Greta Tunberg has departed Israel. Photos emerged on Tuesday
evening posted by Israel's Foreign Ministry on X saying that
(17:14):
she had just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden
via France. Reports say she was placed on the flights
after signing deportation papers and was traveling on her own
without an escort. But we will continue to bring you
updates as this story on folds.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yes, we'll definitely be keeping an eye and like you said,
we will bring any updates to the podcast in our
headlines podcasts in the afternoons. M thank you so much
for walking us through that. Thank you, and thank you
so much for listening to this episode of The Daily Oz.
We'll be back again this afternoon with your evening headlines,
but until then, have a great day. My name is
(17:54):
Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Calcottin woman
from Gadigal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast
is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people and
pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
Already and this is the Daily This is the Daily OS. Oh,
now it makes sense.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Good morning and welcome to the Daily oas it's Wednesday,
the eleventh of June. I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
I'm beliefit.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Simon's an AID ship sailing to Gaza was intercepted by
Israel this week and its passengers, including Greta Tunberg, claimed
they had been kidnapped. Israel said it was providing consular
assistance to facilitate the deportation of the crew of what
it called a selfie yacht to return to their home countries.
(00:41):
In today's deep Dive, we are going to explain what's
going on with this story and take you through the
latest developments. It's dominated headlines, especially over a long weekend
for the rest of us here at home, so we
want to take you through it today.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
And like you said, this has dominated global headlines over
the long weekend. It was absolutely everywhere on Monday when
the crew members claimed that they had been kidnapped. It
is a complex one. Let's start with the ship at
the center of it all. What do we need to
know about that?
Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, so we're talking about a ship called the Madeleine,
which departed southern Italy on the first of June. It
was carrying medical supplies and food bound for Gaza. Now,
the ship is led by an organization called the Freedom
Flotilla Coalition. It's an activist group that says it's campaigning
for freedom of movement for all Palestinians and quote to
(01:36):
end Israel's Gaza blockade, which it calls illegal.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
So they were carrying AID, right, Yeah, exactly, and that
is in light of this blockade that you mentioned. What
do we need to know about the blockade?
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yes, So this all stems back to the ceasefire deal
that you might remember was agreed between Hamas and Israel
back in January. Now, that ceasefire was meant to have
three phases, and the first phase end on the first
of March. Now, negotiations for the remaining phases have been
ongoing for months, but in the meantime, Israel had blocked
(02:09):
AID from reaching Gaza. Now, this was in a move
that's been condemned by UN agencies. International governments, including Australia
and Israel, said the blockade was to pressure Hamas to
release the remaining Israeli hostages who are still being held
in Gaza. On the note of a delivery to Gaza.
(02:29):
It defended the amount of aid flowing into Gaza in
recent days. It's claimed that more than twelve hundred AID
trucks have entered the strip from Israel within the past
two weeks, and in addition to those deliveries, it said
that close to eleven million meals have been issued directly
to civilians through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation the GHF. Now
(02:51):
that is a US and Israeli backed NGO.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Okay, So this blockade started in March when the ceasefire ended.
What has happened since then?
Speaker 2 (03:00):
So since then we've seen this global criticism of the
blockade itself. The World Health Organization says the entire population
of Gaza, two point one million people, is now facing
prolonged food shortages, with nearly half a million people in
what the WHO call a quote catastrophic situation of hunger,
acute maltrition, starvation, illness, and death. It says three quarters
(03:26):
of Gaza's population are in emergency or catastrophic food deprivation,
and the UN has labeled Israel's decision to block aid
as a quote cruel collective punishment of Palestinians, and it
says that AID should never be a bargaining.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Chip okay, and what about the Freedom Flotilla Coalition the FFC,
when did they get involved.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
So as this kind of at tension within the global
community ramped up, as I mentioned, this flotilla announced it
was preparing a vessel to sail to Gaza with AID
on board, and the FFC said its ship, the Madeline,
which was aimed in twenty fifteen after quote Gaza's only
fisher woman at the time, a symbol of resistance and resilience.
(04:06):
It's not the first vessel that's been sent by the FFC,
or has been attempted to be sent by the FFC
to Gaza. The group actually sent an AID ship called
the Conscience in early May, which it said was attacked
by Israeli drones in international waters off the coast of Malta.
So the FFC called the bombing quote a deliberate act
(04:27):
of aggression and intimidation. Four crew members were injured. It
says the ship was set ablaze, communications were severed and
the vessel was left adrift and taking on water. The
group said the attack occurred in European waters, which was
in violation of international law where the ship remains stranded.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
So this is another ship called Conscience that is completely
separate to the one we're talking about today that has
Credit Tumberg on it.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Yep, but same organization, so same activist group, same sort
of attempt to s ship aid into.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Gaza, right, but that was also blocked.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
Yes, that was blocked and essentially destroyed.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
Got it, Okay? So then let's talk about the latest
AID ship that it sent. The Madleene is what it's called.
What do we know about its journey and who was
on board? We know that Greta Tunberg was on board.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Right exactly. So the next attempt by this group, since
the Conscience ship was attacked, it says by Israeli drones,
was this Madeleine journey to deliver aid to Gaza. It
actually started making headlines well before it began its journey,
and that's largely because of some of its high profile passengers.
As you've mentioned, Billy all Up, there were twelve volunteers
(05:37):
from multiple countries on the Madeleine. It set sail from
Sicily on the first of June, so that included with
climate justice activist Greta Tunberg, but there was also a
high profile politician, a French Palestinian woman named Rema Hassan.
She's actually a member of the European Parliament. So when
Tunberg announced that she was going to be one of
(06:00):
the twelve passengers sailing to Gaza on this ship, she
said she felt compelled to join out of moral obligation
to fight for a free Palestine. She added, quote, we
are seeing a systematic starvation of two million people. The
world cannot be silent bystanders, and so Greta Tunberg a
very high profile voice in the climate activism space. Once
(06:21):
she was on board, then the headlines kind of followed
and people really started paying attention to this particular journey.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
I was going to say, maybe we should have explained
this earlier, but for those I'm sure many people are
familiar with Greta Tunberg. She rose to fame at a
very early age for her activism, particularly in the environmental space,
and now into adulthood, she has also continued that activism
into other areas, including human rights. Exactly when we say
that the ship was carrying aid cargo, what exactly does
(06:51):
that mean?
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yes, so the FFC said, specifically, the ship is carrying
what it's called urgently needed supplies for the people in Gaza,
and that includes a whole range of items from baby
formula to flower rice, nappy's, women's sanitary products, water desalination kits,
and a range of medical supplies ranging from crutches to prosthetics.
(07:14):
I do think it is important to flag here that
we're not talking about a huge cargo ship. If you've
seen images of the boat, it's a pretty small sail ship.
The amount of aid it was carrying, though, has been
described as symbolic by the group, So it's not suggesting
that the supplies it has on board will be sufficient
to reach those in needing Gaza. But it's about, they say,
(07:36):
drawing attention to this humanitarian crisis in Gaza, protesting the
Israeli blockade. So the ship is as much of a
protest as it is an aid delivery, I suppose.
Speaker 1 (07:46):
And we're going to keep talking about this, but first
here is a quick message from ours consor. We know
that it never reached its destination. Though what happened It
was on Monday Australia time.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Yes, so on Sunday local time we heard from Israeli
Foreign Minister Israel Katz. He said that he had instructed
the Israeli Defense Forces the IDF to quote take whatever
measures are necessary to stop what he called a hate
flotilla from reaching Gaza, then the flotilla itself. So those
on board the passengers shared a series of posts to
(08:21):
social media. They said that drones were spotted flying over
the Madeleine as it approached Gaza, and footage shared from
the ship shows a white substance being sprayed on its windows.
There's videos of the passengers on board the ship throwing
their phones overboard, and we can see the IDF boarding
the vessel, and the FFC has since posted a series
(08:42):
of pre recorded videos from its passengers. Now there's a
range of these videos, but they call on viewers to
pressure their governments to pressure foreign ministries in countries like Spain, France,
Brazil home countries to some of these passengers to keep
those on board safe. Had also among those videos a
statement from Greta Tunberg. She posted a video urging the
(09:05):
Swedish government she is Swedish, to call for her release.
Here's a little bit of what was said in that video.
Speaker 1 (09:13):
If you see this video, we have been intercepted and
kidnapped in international waters by the Israeli occupational forces or
forces that support Israel, and so her account posted that.
But we know that she herself didn't post that. It
would have been someone with access to her social media.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yes, so these were pre recorded statements, I suppose, you know,
knowing the danger of what they were getting involved in,
the crew kind of preempted a need to have some
kind of a statement ready to go. But the organization
the flotilla itself said that the ship was quote attacked
slash forcibly intercepted by the Israeli military in international waters.
(09:52):
It said the ship was unlawfully boarded and its unarmed
civilian crew was abducted, while the life saving cargo was confiscated.
Speaker 1 (10:01):
Israel immediately put out photos and videos of what had
happened on this ship. How did they respond to these
claims that they had kidnapped these crew members.
Speaker 2 (10:11):
Yes, so we have heard a lot from both sides
involved in this incident. It was Monday morning for us
here in Australia when we got this statement from Israel's
Foreign Ministry. When that came through, it said, quote the
selfie yacht of the celebrities was safely making its way
to the shores of Israel. It said the passengers were
expected to return to their home countries. This was a
(10:33):
really strongly worded statement kind of condemning the action of
the crew and its goal. It called the videos an
attempted publicity stunt over less than a single truckload of
aid and said there are ways to deliver aid to
the Gaza strip they do not involve Instagram selfies. And
Israel also posted a video showing the passengers on a
(10:54):
small boat being given sandwiches and water, and there was
a photo of Tunberg in that kind of release of comments.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Can you just really quickly explain so earlier we mentioned
that there was this blockade, but Israel is saying that
there has been some aid that has been delivered to Gaza.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Yes, So this has been kind of a huge point
of contention in the global community, and we talked about
it on the podcast a couple of weeks ago. So,
the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation that I mentioned, they are backed
by Israel, backed by US, and the idea is that
they should be from Israel's perspective, responsible for the distribution
of aid in Gaza, a centralized organization to be responsible
(11:36):
for handing out aid from for kind of centralized aid agencies. Now,
the criticism has been that those aid centers are not
necessarily conveniently located for the two million people of Gaza,
that there is a lot of starvation, that there are
people who are nursing serious injuries without medical care, and
that they will not physically be able to get to
(11:59):
those aid centers. There are concerns about the fact that
these centers are manned by a military presence, that there's
facial recognition technology. That's some of the allegations, that there
are privacy concerns. So that's its own kind of set
of issues and seat of kind of conversation mounting on
the other side of this. But Israel and the United States,
(12:21):
it's closest to ally have defended that organization as distributing
adequate aid in the region.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
At the moment, what do we know about these twelve
crew members. Since the IDF intercepted the ship.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
So late on Monday night local time, Israeli authorities said
that the boat it continued to call it the selfie yacht,
had docked at Ashdod Port. Now, that's a main cargo
port near the city of Tel Aviv, about forty kilometers
south of Tel Aviv, and Israel said the passengers were
undergoing medical exams to ensure they were in good health.
(12:54):
So that was that update, and then about six hours
later we got another update confirming that the passengers had
all been taken to the International airport in Tel Aviv. There,
Israel's Foreign Ministry says they were met by diplomatic representatives
each from their home countries, and the Foreign Ministry said
that some passengers were pretty much expected to leave within hours. However,
(13:16):
it noted that anyone who refused to sign deportation documents,
so anyone who refused to leave Israel voluntarily, would be
brought before a judicial authority in accordance with Israeli law
to authorize their deportation. So essentially they would launch legal
proceedings to forcibly remove these people from Israel. Now, the
(13:37):
Defense Minister of Israel, Israel Katz, congratulated the IDF for
what he called quote the quick and safe takeover of
the Madeleine flotilla to prevent them from breaking the blockade
and reaching the shores of Gaza. He also wrote in
a post to x that it was important to show
Greta Tunberg and the other passengers quote exactly who the
Hamas terrorist organization they came to support, is, saying he
(14:00):
had instructed the IDF to show the flotilla passengers quote
the video of the horrors of the October seven massacre
when they arrived at the port of Ashdod.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
And have we heard from anyone on the flotilla about
these updates?
Speaker 2 (14:13):
So we haven't heard from the passengers themselves yet at
the time of recording, but we have received kind of
rolling updates from the FFC as they have kind of emerged.
So when we get responses from Israel, we've typically also
heard from the FFC. They've both been pretty active in
their communication about this incident and the movement of the passengers.
(14:34):
The FFC said the passengers are expected to be moved
to a detention facility unless they agree to leave immediately,
so that lines up with what we heard from the
Foreign Ministry in Israel. FFC lawyers said, though, quote, we're
talking about people who were sailing in international orders and
then Israel basically captured them and abducted them into Israel.
(14:55):
We continue to demand the immediate release of all volunteers
and the return of the stole and aid their detention
is unlawful and a violation of international law. So the
group is continuing claims that the actions of the IDF
and of the Israeli government are unlawful, and I'm sure
we will hear more on that in the coming weeks.
Speaker 1 (15:15):
As wev said, this is an international story, particularly because
many of the crew members are from all sorts of
different countries. What has the response from the international community, bin.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Yes, so there are a range of countries involved. As
you mentioned, Billy, half of the crew though are French citizens,
and that includes the eu MP who we mentioned earlier
in the episode, and authorities in France say that they
did warn the passengers on board the flotilla of the
risks that they were exposing themselves to The French Foreign
Minister has also said since this incident that he's been
(15:48):
assured by Israel that the crew would receive consular assistance
when they arrived in Tel Aviv. Sweden, where Greta Tunberg
is from, said it's monitoring the situation closely. In terms
of response from the United Nations. Before the trip, the
UN actually said that it was seriously concerned for the
passenger's safety. It said as the Freedom Flotilla coalition's ship
(16:10):
approaches its destination, Israel must adhere to international law and
comply with orders from the International Court of Justice to
ensure unimpeded access for humanitarian aid, so making its position
on the plight of the flotilla pretty clear there. Now,
since the ship was intercepted, we have heard from Francesca Albanesi.
(16:31):
She works for UNRA, which is the UN agency that
works with Palestine and Palestinian refugees. She has urged other
boats to challenge Israel's Gaza blockade, so she's essentially calling
on more boats to do what the Madeleine was attempting
to do. In a post to X, she said Madeleine's
journey may have ended, but the mission isn't over. Every
(16:53):
Mediterranean port must send boats with aid and solidarity to Gaza. Now,
at the time of recording, we are awaiting news on
the movements of all twelve passengers, but we do know
that Greta Tunberg has departed Israel. Photos emerged on Tuesday
evening posted by Israel's Foreign Ministry on X saying that
(17:14):
she had just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden
via France. Reports say she was placed on the flights
after signing deportation papers and was traveling on her own
without an escort. But we will continue to bring you
updates as this story on folds.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Yes, we'll definitely be keeping an eye and like you said,
we will bring any updates to the podcast in our
headlines podcasts in the afternoons. M thank you so much
for walking us through that. Thank you, and thank you
so much for listening to this episode of The Daily Oz.
We'll be back again this afternoon with your evening headlines,
but until then, have a great day. My name is
(17:54):
Lily Madden and I'm a proud Arunda Bungelung Calcottin woman
from Gadigal Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast
is recorded on the lands of the Gadigal people and
pays respect to all Aboriginal and torrest Rate island and nations.
We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries,
both past and present.
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