Boats belonging to the Global Sumud Flotilla, carrying activists and humanitarian aid, depart for Gaza from the port of Marmaris, Turkey, Thursday, May 14, 2026, in an attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade. (AP Photo\/Murat Kocabas)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-05-18T08:01:11Z<\/p>\n
ANKARA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 The Israeli military began intercepting several boats on Monday morning that are part of a flotilla attempting to break the Gaza blockade.<\/p>\n
More than 50 vessels departed from the port in Marmaris last week in what the organizers of the Global Sumud Flotilla<\/a><\/span> described as the final leg of their journey to Gaza\u2019s shores.<\/p>\n The organization\u2019s livestream showed activists aboard several vessels putting on life jackets and raising their hands before a boat carrying troops approached. Israeli troops wearing tactical gear boarded the ship, and the livestream abruptly ended. Many of the ships are currently off the coast of Cyprus.<\/p>\n An hour prior to the interception, Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry called activists to \u201cchange course and turn back immediately.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cOnce again, a provocation for the sake of provocation: another so-called \u201chumanitarian aid flotilla\u201d with no humanitarian aid,\u201d the Foreign Ministry posted on X. The Israeli military declined to comment on the ongoing operation. <\/p>\n On April 30, Israeli forces intercepted more than 20 boats from a flotilla near the southern Greek island of Crete, initially holding about 175 activists. The incident drew protests and condemnation from several countries and raised questions about what any nation can legally do<\/a><\/span> to enforce a blockade in international waters. Israeli officials said they had to act early because of the high number of boats involved.<\/p>\n Israel took two of the activists<\/a><\/span> \u2014 a Spanish-Swedish citizen of Palestinian origin, Saif Abukeshek, and Brazilian citizen Thiago \u00c1vila \u2014 back to Israel where they were interrogated and detained for several days. The activists accused Israel of torture, which Israel denied. Brazil and Spain condemned Israel for \u201ckidnapping\u201d their citizens. The two were deported from Israel<\/a><\/span> on Sunday.<\/p>\n Organizers say the latest efforts involved a regrouped fleet following Israel\u2019s interception, joined by additional boats. Nearly 500 activists from 45 countries were taking part.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Boats belonging to the Global Sumud Flotilla, carrying activists and humanitarian aid, depart for Gaza from the port of Marmaris, Turkey, Thursday, May 14, 2026, in an attempt to break the Israeli naval blockade. (AP Photo\/Murat Kocabas) 2026-05-18T08:01:11Z ANKARA, Turkey (AP) \u2014 The Israeli military began intercepting several boats on Monday morning that are part… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-770","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=770"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=770"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=770"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=770"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}