“Six participants who were aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, unlawfully intercepted and detained on their way to Gaza amid the ongoing genocide, remain in Israeli detention,” a statement said.
Lawyers submitted requests to Israeli authorities to visit the detainees on Wednesday if they remain in custody. Israeli media earlier reported that authorities extended the detention of Spanish activist Reyes Rigo Cervilla for one week.
Egypt and Qatar, alongside Hamas, are using „all means available“ to secure the release of Marwan Barghouti as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement between the group and Israel, three sources informed on the negotiations have told Middle East Eye.
The long-imprisoned Palestinian political leader is on a list “of around one hundred senior Palestinian prisoners” being discussed ahead of the second phase of the truce deal, a source close to the negotiations said.
“Marwan alongside [a] few others are at the top of that list,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the details.
The Gaza-based Government Media Office said at least 94 people were killed on Saturday and Sunday. At least seven more were killed on Monday morning, according to local media.
Israeli forces carried out 131 air and artillery strikes on densely populated areas across the Strip over the weekend, the media office added.
Senior Egyptian officials told their US counterparts that they want the International Stabilization Force outlined in Trump’s 20-point peace plan to be modeled on the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO) that deployed to Sinai after the peninsula was returned to Egypt from Israel in 1982.
The US has led the MFO since its inception, supplying hundreds of troops as a buffer and reassurance force.
The airport, called El Gora, is usually largely inactive but used by the Multinational Force and Observers (MFO), the peacekeeping organisation that monitors the security provisions of the 1979 Egypt-Israel Peace Treaty in the Sinai. It is the closest airport to Gaza outside of Israel.
A U.S. Air Force Beech C-12V Huron plane arrived in Egypt on 23 August and has been flying daily flights in the region since. A Black Hawk helicopter also started flying from the airport on 9 September. It is believed that the planes are operating under the MFO mandate, which does not include the war in Gaza, because their callsign includes that acronym.
But Deep Dive has found evidence the planes are being used by the Trump administration to spy close to, and possibly over, Gaza.
The US Beech C-12V flew its first mission on 31 August and transponder data shows it spent an hour circling just 10 miles off northern Gaza after taking off from Hatzor military base in Israel, which has been used to gather intelligence over the Palestinian territory.
“I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment. Trust me, but that is not the story,” Thunberg said during a press conference at Athens Eleftherios Venizelos International Airport in Greece, where she and other flotilla participants released by Israel were greeted by a cheering crowd.
“What happened here is that Israel, while continuing to worsen and escalate their genocide and mass destruction with genocidal intent, attempting to erase an entire population, an entire nation in front of our very eyes, they once again violated international law by preventing humanitarian aid from getting into Gaza while people are being starved,” she continued.
“This genocide and other genocides are being enabled and fueled by our own governments, our institutions, our media, and companies. It is our responsibility to end that complicity… to use our privileges, our platforms, to take a stance against this, that is in every way unjustifiable,” Thunberg asserted.
“I will never, ever comprehend how humans can be so evil that you would deliberately starve millions of people living trapped under an illegal siege as a continuation of decades and decades of suffocating oppression, apartheid, occupation,” she added.
Streamed live 11 hours ago #GretaThunberg #GazaFlotilla #AthensArrival
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, along with 27 Greek nationals and over 70 international deportees from the intercepted Global Sumud Flotilla, arrives in Athens on a special flight from Israel. Detained during the humanitarian aid mission to Gaza, they return amid global outcry over the blockade and mistreatment allegations. DRM News provides live coverage of the airport arrival, statements, and reactions to the ongoing crisis.
So, I was dragged out of the boat by my collar and chucked on the floor, cut my knee open. And the first thing I saw as we were dragged out, or I was dragged out, was 300 people kneeling with their hands behind their backs, facing straight down at the concrete, outside of the Port of Ashdod. They were forced to stay there, in some cases, for six hours. I was forced to stay there for about two-and-a-half hours on my knees with my hands behind my back, before I was processed in the Ashdod center and sent to the prison in the Negev Desert, which we can get onto the conditions of in a moment.
At that point, Ben-Gvir, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was brought out so that he could parade in front of us. And I think the assumption — and I want to emphasize this — I think the assumption was that we would be cowed, that we would be fearful, that we would stay quiet. And actually, that’s not what happened. And what happened sets the tone for what then carried on in the prison, which is that everybody, as soon as we saw Ben-Gvir, 300 people on their knees — in fear, no doubt — started shouting, “Free Palestine! Free Palestine!” calling him a génocidaire and a baby killer and so on. And he was really shocked. You could see that Ben-Gvir was stunned by that. His people, the police, they were all stunned by it. They expected us to be cowed, and we weren’t.
The families of British and American Global Sumud Flotilla activists illegally detained by Israel have told Middle East Eye that the US and UK governments have failed to properly represent their citizens.
Clare Azzougarh, the daughter of Malcolm Ducker, a 72-year-old British air force veteran who captained a boat on the flotilla and is being held in Ketziot prison, said her family feels “immensely let down by the British government in so many ways”.
Laura Adler, the sister of David Adler, a Jewish-American member of the flotilla and co-general coordinator of the Progressive International, told MEE the response of the US government had made her realise that “not everyone is deemed to be equally American”.
“I didn’t realise how non-responsive and passive the US government would be,” Laura Adler said.
There are signs that the authoritarian powers are cracking, the police are struggling to enforce this absurd law, with some police forces outright refusing to make arrests. International and national human rights groups, politicians and United Nations representatives have condemned both the ban and the subsequent attacks on our civil liberties. Unions are declaring that they will not recognise the ban, while over 1600 people were arrested prior to our October 4th action.
We will be holding our signs around the UK in key cities and towns, as well as converging on London for the Judicial Review Itself (25-27 November). Book time off now, and sign the form to tell us where you’ll be taking action.
We will not comply with anti-democratic laws. We call on the UK Government to Lift The Ban on Palestine Action and to end UK complicity in Israel’s genocide.
In unity, not uniformity, we join together.
Police arrested nearly 500 more pro-Palestine demonstrators on Saturday—including many Jewish activists—who participated in a protest calling for the government to “Lift the Ban” on the protest group Palestine Action, which was outlawed under Britain’s anti-terrorism law in July.
Those arrested included an 83-year-old Anglican priest, the 79-year-old daughter of a Holocaust survivor, and a 79-year-old Jewish man with terminal illness, among hundreds of others who held signs in opposition to the ban as part of a “silent vigil.”
(…=
“The right to protest is a fundamental freedom in our country. However, this freedom must be balanced with the freedom of their neighbours to live their lives without fear,” said Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood. “Large, repeated protests can leave sections of our country, particularly religious communities, feeling unsafe, intimidated, and scared to leave their homes. This has been particularly evident in relation to the considerable fear within the Jewish community, which has been expressed to me on many occasions in these recent difficult days.”
(September 30, 2025)
Asked about the secretary’s meeting with the generals and comments about readiness for war, Pope Leo said: “This way of speaking is worrying, because it shows each time an increase in tensions — this vocabulary, even shifting from ‘Minister of Defense’ to ‘Minister of War.’ Let’s hope it is only a way of speaking. Certainly, they have a style of government where they want to show strength, to put pressure, and we hope it works, but that there will not be war. One must always work for peace.”
(October 5, 2025)
Peace abroad and war at home? It’s an unusual note to strike in an electoral democracy.
(September 5, 2025)
The order comes as some of Trump’s closest supporters on Capitol Hill proposed legislation that would codify the new name into law, with Congress having the sole power to establish, shutter and rename federal departments.