Two detained Gaza flotilla leaders brought to Israel for questioning

Palestinian-Spanish citizen Saif Abu Keshek, Brazilian Thiago Ávila to be questioned and provided consular visits; Israel says they are tied to a US-sanctioned Hamas front group

Two activists who led a flotilla bound for Gaza have arrived in Israel, the Foreign Ministry said Saturday, after several boats were intercepted by Israeli forces in international waters off Crete earlier in the week.

“Saif Abu Keshek, a leading member of the PCPA — an organization designated and sanctioned by the United States as a Hamas front — and Thiago Ávila, who operates with the PCPA and is suspected of illegal activity, have arrived in Israel,” the ministry said in a tweet, without providing evidence.

The ministry was referring to the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, which the US Treasury says “claims to provide medical care to Palestinian civilians but in fact supports the military wing of Hamas.”

The ministry said the two will be taken for questioning by law enforcement authorities and will receive a consular visit from the representatives of their respective countries.

Abu Keshek, a Palestinian-Spanish citizen, and Ávila, a Brazilian citizen, are members of the Global Sumud Flotilla’s steering committee, which is behind the repeated attempts to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

Some 175 other activists, who had been aboard the flotilla and were detained when Israel intercepted many of the ships, disembarked in Crete.

The latest attempt to reach Gaza comes less than a year after Israeli authorities foiled the previous effort by the group. Participants, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, detained on those flotillas were questioned in Israel before later being deported.

Israeli officials repeatedly denounced the flotillas as publicity stunts, saying they brought insignificant amounts of aid.

The Israeli Navy intercepted the latest flotilla, comprised of 58 boats, overnight between Wednesday and Thursday off the coast of Crete, hundreds of nautical miles (over 1,000 kilometers) from Israel.

During past attempts to challenge the naval blockade, the Navy has intercepted the boats much closer to Gaza’s shores, which the flotilla was expected to reach over the weekend.

The Foreign Ministry has said that “due to the large numbers of vessels participating in the flotilla and the risk of escalation, and the need to prevent the breach of a lawful blockade, an early action was required in accordance with international law.”

The Navy called on the remaining activists to either turn back or sail to Ashdod if they had humanitarian aid, to allow it to be inspected before entering Gaza. It warned that they, too, would be stopped if they tried to continue on their course.

Organizers said 31 of the remaining vessels have continued on their route and will attempt to “break the illegal siege of Gaza.”

The flotilla set sail earlier this month from Barcelona, Spain. Organizers have said more than 70 boats and 1,000 people from around the world would be participating, with more vessels joining the original boats as the flotilla sailed east across the Mediterranean.

The Global Sumud Flotilla appealed for international support after Israel said Abu Keshek and Ávila would be taken to Israel.

“We demand that all governments do all they can to pressure the Israeli regime to release all the illegal abductees,” the group said Friday.

Spain and Brazil have not yet commented on the detention and transfer to Israel of Abukeshek and Ávila, but they said in a joint statement with several other nations late Thursday that Israel’s interception of the flotilla and detention of the activists in international waters “constitute flagrant violations of international law and international humanitarian law.”

Israel’s ties with Spain and Brazil are already shaky, with both countries’ left-wing governments among the most critical of Israel internationally.

The war in Gaza, triggered by the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, has led to severe shortages of food, water, medicine and fuel. However, aid had flowed steadily into Gaza since a ceasefire last year.

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, a stance it has reiterated since the October 7, 2023, attack that started the Gaza war. Critics of the blockade said it amounts to collective punishment of the Strip’s roughly 2 million Palestinians.