Thunberg, 3 Madleen colleagues deported from Israel – others still detained

Four Palestine humanitarian volunteers, including Greta Thunberg, have been deported from Israel this morning after being held for more than twenty-four hours after Israel rammed and seized the aid ship Madleen in international waters, which was trying to break Israel’s illegal starvation blockade on Gaza. The four agreed at a ‘kangaroo court’ hearing to leave Israel immediately. Eight others, including French-Palestinian jurist and MEP Rima Hassan, refused to accept deportation because it involved signing a declaration that they had illegally entered Israel when they had been taken there by force from international waters. They are still being held in a detention facility at Ben Gurion International Airport, but are expected to face transfer to the notorious Ramleh prison, which has been condemned for its psychological and physical torture of Palestinian civilians taken hostage by Israel.

According to the Israeli Ynet media outlet, the Israeli regime has said it will forcibly deport the remaining eight crew members “with or without their consent”. The Palestinian humanitarian law centre Adalah has said it expected to gain access to the remaining crew but has not yet confirmed it was able to do so.

Israel’s starvation blockade continues, with its token ‘aid’ stations used to ethnically cleanse and then murder Palestinians. UK PM Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary David Lammy have done nothing to protect the crew of the UK-flagged Madleen – and Lammy has banned his department from seeking legal advice on Israel’s piracy of the vessel, which is unequivocally illegal under UK law.

Please remember to support Skwawkbox if you can, to help ensure it can keep running. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (Skwawkbox will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:

Thanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!

If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so, but please include the donor information above – see here for more.