{"id":60421,"date":"2015-06-29T12:52:25","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T11:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=60421"},"modified":"2015-07-06T12:08:18","modified_gmt":"2015-07-06T11:08:18","slug":"gaza-bound-flotilla-vessel-seized-by-israeli-navy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/06\/gaza-bound-flotilla-vessel-seized-by-israeli-navy\/","title":{"rendered":"Gaza-Bound Flotilla Vessel Seized by Israeli Navy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>29 Jun 2015 &#8211;<em> Activists say the Marianne was intercepted by Israel&#8217;s military around 100 nautical miles from Gaza&#8217;s shore.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Israel has boarded and taken over a vessel attempting to break the blockade of the Gaza Strip, officials said.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement the Israeli army said on Monday [29 Jun] that it did not use force in redirecting the main boat Marianne to the Israeli city of Ashdod.<\/p>\n<p>Petros Stergiou, a spokesperson for the flotilla, told Al Jazeera that organisers lost contact with the Marianne at around 2am local time on Monday morning, as three military boats approached.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/GazaFFlotilla\/status\/615361647188803584\/photo\/1<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What we learned is that the Israeli navy attacked the Marianne around 100 nautical miles from the shore of Gaza,&#8221; Stergiou said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They said they could see three military boats approaching them that had identified themselves as being military.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Once again, the Israeli government and its military has acted like state pirates and attacked our boat in international waters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Israeli army spokesman Peter Lerner said the seizure of the ship was &#8220;uneventful&#8221; and it would now be escorted to Ashdod in southern Israel.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">After repeated appeals and following refusal to change course, the vessel is now being escorted to Ashdod Port.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Lt. Col. (R) Peter Lerner (@LTCPeterLerner) <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LTCPeterLerner\/status\/615340401273081856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" >June 29, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu commended the Israeli navy for detaining the passengers on the ship.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This flotilla is nothing but a demonstration of hypocrisy and lies that is only assisting the Hamas terrorist organisation and ignores all of the horrors in our region,&#8221; Netanyahu said.<\/p>\n<p>The vessel is part of the Freedom Flotilla III &#8211; a convoy of four ships carrying pro-Palestinian activists including Arab Israeli lawmaker Basel Ghattas, Tunisia&#8217;s former president Moncef Marzouki and at least one\u00a0European lawmaker.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Previous attempts <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a similar bid to break the blockade in 2010, a pre-dawn raid by Israeli commandos on the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara killed 10 Turkish activists.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, Israel apologised for &#8220;operational mistakes&#8221; in the raid. A compensation deal is still being negotiated between the two countries.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli soldiers and officials who took part in the attack are being tried in absentia in Turkey for war crimes.<\/p>\n<p>Several attempts since have been thwarted, but without bloodshed.<\/p>\n<p>_____________________________<\/p>\n<p><em>Mark Worley, in Doha, contributed to this story.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2015\/06\/gaza-bound-flotilla-seized-israeli-navy-150629032943407.html\" >Go to Original \u2013 aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>29 Jun 2015 &#8211; Activists say the Marianne was intercepted by Israel&#8217;s military around 100 nautical miles from Gaza&#8217;s shore.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58,45,57,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-activism","category-militarism","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}