More than 100 pro-Palestinian activists aboard so-called aid ships bound for Gaza were taken to the Greek island of Crete on Friday after Israeli forces seized their vessels in international waters near Greece, flotilla organisers said.
The activists were part of a second Global Sumud flotilla, launched in recent months in an attempt to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.
The ships set sail from the Spanish port of Barcelona on April 12. On Friday, an Israeli army ship transferred 168 members of the flotilla crew to Greek boats, which then took them to shore where buses and one ambulance car waited for them, organisers said and Reuters footage showed.
The organisers said two activists remained with Israeli authorities.
A source who asked not to be identified said that while 22 boats had been intercepted by Israel, 47 others were still sailing off southern Crete and planned to anchor there at some point before continuing onwards to Gaza.
The 22 vessels were seized by Israel late on Wednesday in international waters off Greece's Peloponnese peninsula, which is hundreds of miles from Gaza, the flotilla's organisers said.
Israel's foreign ministry called the flotilla organisers "professional provocateurs," while Germany and Italy's foreign ministries issued a joint statement saying they were following developments with "deep concern."
In a statement on Thursday, the US State Department threatened, "to impose consequences," against those who support the flotilla, which it cast as pro-Hamas.
Last October Israel's military halted a previous flotilla assembled by the same organisation, arresting controversial Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and more than 450 participants. That followed other seaborne attempts to reach blockaded Gaza.
(Reporting by Reuters TV and Renee Maltezou and Angeliki Koutantou; writing by Ivana Sekularac, Editing by William Maclean)
