Israeli Navy boards peace activist ship to Gaza

An earlier statement by the voyage's organizers, the Free Gaza Movement, said the vessel, renamed the Spirit of Humanity, left the Cypriot port of Larnaca on Monday bound for Gaza with three tons of medical supplies. The 20 passengers include former US Representative Cynthia McKinney, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and other activists from Britain, Ireland, Bahrain and Jamaica. The ship was flying a Greek flag, but no Greek citizens were aboard. The Greek government issued a statement saying it sent a message to Israel demanding that it release the ship, crew and passengers. "No shots were fired during the boarding of the boat," the Israeli military said in a statement. A police source said the boat crew and the activists would likely be deported.

The military said the vessel was intercepted in Gaza's Israeli-controlled coastal waters, but independent reports suggest the ship was actually commandeered in international waters, with the BBC reporting that the British Foreign Office said on Tuesday it was aware of the situation and was trying to clarify the facts. "We would be concerned if the stories of the Israeli Navy boarding the boat in international waters were true," a spokesman said. "We have made it clear to Israel that we are very concerned for the safety of British nationals."

The vessel was taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where it docked. The Israeli navy has intercepted Free Gaza activists sailing into Gaza on two previous occasions. Greta Berlin, a Free Gaza representative in Cyprus, voiced outrage at what she termed Israel's theft of the boat and kidnapping of its passengers. Greece, whose flag the vessel is flying, demanded the Israeli authorities immediately release the boat, the crew and its passengers.

The Gaza Strip is in dire straits following a December 2008-January 2009 Israeli military onslaught in which about 1,400 Palestinians were killed -- 437 of them children and most of them civilians. In addition to the death toll, the civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip was largely demolished, with food, water and medicine scarce and hospitals, homes, schools and mosques destroyed. On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said missile-firing Israeli drones unlawfully killed at least 29 Palestinian civilians during the Gaza Strip war despite the Israeli military's advanced surveillance equipment. Drone operators failed to exercise proper caution "as required by the laws of war" in verifying their targets were combatants, the New York-based monitoring group said.