PARIS: Swedish activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday accused Israel of “kidnapping us in international waters and taking us against our will to Israel” after security forces intercepted a boat carrying humanitarian aid bound for Gaza.
“This is yet another intentional violation of rights that is added to the list of countless other violations that Israel is committing,“ Thunberg, 22, told reporters on arrival at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris after being deported from Israel.
She stressed that her own experience was “nothing compared to what the Palestinians are going through”.
Of the 12 people on board the Madleen carrying food and supplies for Gaza, five French activists were taken into custody after they refused to leave Israel voluntarily.
But Thunberg, who rose to fame as a schoolgirl activist against climate change and seeks to avoid flying because of its environmental impact, was deported by Israel on a commercial flight of national airline El Al bound for Paris.
“This is not the real story. The real story is there is a genocide going on in Gaza and systematic starvation,“ said Thunberg.
Several rights groups including Amnesty International have accused Israel of genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza but Israel vehemently rejects the term.
The vessel carrying French, German, Brazilian, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish and Dutch activists had the stated aim of delivering humanitarian aid and breaking the Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory.
Israel intercepted the Madleen about 185 kilometres (115 miles) west of the coast of Gaza.
Thunberg said what happened to the vessel was a “continuation and violation of international law and war crimes that are being systematically committed by Israel by not letting aid in” to Gaza.
“This was a mission of attempting to once again bring aid to Gaza and send solidarity. And saw we cannot,“ she said.
She also denounced what she termed the “silence and passivity” of governments worldwide over what was taking place in Gaza.
“There are no words to describe the betrayal that is happening every day by our own governments,“ she said.
Admitting she was “desperately in need of a shower”, Thunberg vowed to carry on her campaign. “We will not stop. We will try every single day to demand an end to the atrocities Israel is carrying out”.
The October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza says at least 54,981 people, the majority civilians, have been killed in the territory since the start of the war. The UN considers these figures reliable.
Out of 251 taken hostage during the Hamas attack, 54 are still held in Gaza including 32 the Israeli military says are dead.
