Israel deports 171 more Gaza flotilla activists, including Greta Thunberg

JERUSALEM: Israel said it deported on Monday 171 more activists who were detained while taking part in an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg.

The foreign ministry said in a post on X that “171 additional provocateurs from the Hamas–Sumud flotilla, including Greta Thunberg, were deported today from Israel to Greece and Slovakia”.Photos shared with the post showed Thunberg alongside two other women walking through Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport wearing the grey tracksuits used in Israeli prisons.Israel started intercepting the flotilla vessels in international waters on Wednesday. An Israeli official said on Thursday that boats with more than 400 people on board had been prevented from reaching the Palestinian territory.

International activists who arrived in Istanbul after being deported from Israel said on Saturday they had been subjected to violence and “treated like animals”.

In its post on X on Monday, Israel’s foreign ministry said that “all the legal rights of the participants in this PR stunt were and will continue to be fully upheld.”

The Israeli foreign ministry told AFP that 138 activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla were still in Israeli custody.

It added that the deportees were citizens of several countries, including Greece, Italy, France and the United States.