UPDATE – Israel deports 6 more foreign activists from Gaza aid ship

UPDATES WITH DETAILS, REVISES HEADLINE

By Mohammad Sio and Rania Abu Shamala

ISTANBUL (AA) – Israel deported six more international activists from a Gaza-bound aid ship on Thursday.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry published photos of the six activists at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport on its X account and later aboard the plane.

The Israeli rights organization and legal center Adalah earlier identified the six activists as Mark van Rennes from the Netherlands, Suayb Ordu from Türkiye, Yasemin Acar from Germany, Thiago Avila from Brazil, Reva Viard, and European Parliament lawmaker Rima Hassan from France.

The six were among 12 international activists detained by Israeli forces aboard the Madleen aid ship on Monday. Israel deported four activists to their home countries on Tuesday, including Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.

Two other activists, Pascal Maurieras and Yanis Mhamdi from France, remain in custody and are expected to be deported on Friday, it said.

The ship had set sail from Sicily, Italy, on June 6, for Gaza in an attempt to break an Israeli naval blockade on the enclave, where over 55,200 people have been killed in a deadly onslaught since October 2023.

As Israel has continued to close all Gaza’s border crossings to humanitarian aid since early March, aid agencies have warned about the risk of famine among Gaza’s 2.4 million inhabitants.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.