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Today the Israeli navy intercepted a flotilla of 54 boats of activists trying to deliver aid to break Israel's long-standing blockade on Gaza. Using speedboats, the military boarded 28 boats and arrested activists on board, including the sister of the president of Ireland. Israel's foreign ministry says it found no humanitarian aid. Durrie Bouscaren reports.
DURRIE BOUSCAREN, BYLINE: As speedboats from Israel's navy drew closer, a flotilla activist named Ariadna Masmitja sent a voice note to NPR.
ARIADNA MASMITJA: Now we can see a rip coming to us, also a big boat like the prison boat on the last interception.
BOUSCAREN: She felt a sense of deja vu. In April, Israel boarded the flotilla off the coast of Crete, detaining about 180 activists and bringing two flotilla organizers to Israel for interrogations. They were released after 10 days. This time, the flotilla was intercepted in international waters near Cyprus, about 250 nautical miles from Gaza.
MASMITJA: We want to denounce the illegal actions in the international law and the maritime law and the genocide state of Israel. And also, we want to denounce the complicity, the silence of our governments.
BOUSCAREN: Livestream video feeds on the boats showed sailors in orange life jackets with their hands up as they were boarded by Israeli soldiers in fatigues with guns. Israel rejects allegations of genocide. It says it's fighting Hamas after the October 2023 attack that it says killed some 1,200 people in Israel. The subsequent war has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
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PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Speaking Hebrew).
BOUSCAREN: As the Israeli navy intercepted the flotilla, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to the commanders directly from a control room. His office released a video of the conversation.
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NETANYAHU: (Speaking Hebrew).
BOUSCAREN: "You are effectively thwarting and neutralizing a malicious plan intended to break the blockade we are imposing on Hamas terrorists in Gaza," Netanyahu said. Despite an October ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, it's still difficult to get aid into Gaza. Each shipment must be approved and inspected by Israel, which controls every entry point into the enclave.
ISLAM MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
BOUSCAREN: In a voice note, Islam Mohammad, a psychologist in Gaza, says she feels she's living in a cage, and every day, it gets smaller. "There's no difference," she says, "between wartime or a truce."
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
BOUSCAREN: She says that even if the flotilla did break through the blockade, she knows that the material impact won't be huge. The difference, she says, is symbolic.
MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).
BOUSCAREN: "We feel like the Freedom flotilla is the light that breaks through this isolation," she says, "that people with Western passports are thinking about us, that we're not alone." Organizers of the flotilla said that the remaining boats that were not intercepted are continuing to sail to Gaza. For NPR News, I'm Durrie Bouscaren in Istanbul.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMOTIONAL ORANGES SONG, "TALK ABOUT US") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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