Serbia pledges support for citizen detained by Israel on Gaza aid flotilla

By Ilayda Cakirtekin

ISTANBUL (AA) - Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic on Thursday pledged to help a Serbian citizen who was detained by Israel when it attacked the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla.

"As for the fight for our people, that is our obligation. (...) Today, in the end, when they are unable to save themselves, they call on the state for help. The state is, of course, always there to help and will always do everything it can," Vucic said ahead of the European Political Community meeting.

Serbian activist Ognjen Markovic was also aboard the flotilla.

"We have contacted the Israeli authorities. We have informed them that there is a Bulgarian citizen. We have called on them to comply with the norms of international law. And we will have more information by the time our consul visits (Bulgarian citizen) Vasil Dimitrov," Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov told reporters.

Israel’s naval forces attacked 21 vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla since late Wednesday and detained at least 317 activists aboard, according to the official flotilla tracker.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry announced that "several boats" of the flotilla had been "detained" and that their passengers were being transferred to an Israeli port.

Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza, which is home to nearly 2.4 million people, for nearly 18 years, and further tightened the siege in March when it closed border crossings and blocked food and medicine deliveries, pushing the enclave into famine.

The Israeli army has killed more than 66,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children, in Gaza since October 2023. The UN and rights groups have repeatedly warned that the enclave is being rendered uninhabitable, with starvation and disease spreading rapidly.