Israeli naval forces, including commandos from the elite Shayetet 13 unit, began taking control of boats participating in a Gaza-bound flotilla on Monday morning, according to videos and accounts posted to social media by activists aboard the vessels. Footage and posts published by flotilla participants showed armed Israeli troops boarding the vessels and detaining activists on board, with the activists reportedly transferred to a larger Israeli Navy vessel before being taken to Ashdod. There was no immediate official Israeli military statement confirming the full scope of the operation or the number of vessels intercepted.
Who Has the Power
The interception put the Israeli Navy, backed by elite commandos, in direct control of the sea route the activists were trying to use. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a preliminary security consultation regarding the flotilla, which includes Hamas supporters, before the interception, an Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post. During the takeover, Netanyahu, along with Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief-of-Staff Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, spoke to the commander of Flotilla 3 and praised the soldiers.
Netanyahu said, “I think you are doing an outstanding job, both with the first flotilla and with this one, and effectively neutralizing a malicious plan designed to break the isolation we have imposed on Hamas terrorists in Gaza.” He also said, “You are doing this with great success, and I must say also quietly, and certainly with less prominence than our enemies expected – so, heartfelt congratulations. Keep going until the end. The water looks absolutely wonderful. I would love to be out there with you.”
The language from the top is plain enough: the blockade is not a side effect, but a policy being enforced by force, with the military apparatus congratulating itself while activists are hauled off deck.
Who Gets Stopped at Sea
Around twenty Gaza flotilla vessels pushed ahead on their journey to the Gaza Strip, the Global Sumud Flotilla said in a press release on Monday evening, after Israeli naval forces intercepted almost half their ships. GSF said that the Israeli strategy to force the activist fleet to submit had failed, as small sailboats and motorboats had managed to slip through the maritime perimeter. According to the GSF ship tracker, 27 vessels were still sailing.
GSF said, “The presence of more than 20 active vessels on the water stands as a historic rebuke to an illegal siege that has relied on absolute military impunity for decades as it has abused, occupied, genocided, and ethnically cleansed the Palestinian people.” The group’s statement frames the confrontation as a challenge to a system that depends on armed enforcement and impunity, not consent.
The Turkish flotilla, which includes 53 vessels and some 500 participants, was organized by the IHH, the same group behind the Mavi Marmara flotilla. In addition to the naval flotilla, a 30-vehicle land convoy set out from Libya to Gaza on Saturday as part of the GSF. The flotilla is an element of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which departed Turkey for Gaza on Thursday on its second blockade run, the first of which occurred in April and ended with 20 of its vessels intercepted by the Israeli Navy.
The interception of the 54 vessels and almost 500 activists occurred west of Cyprus, and about 250 nautical miles from the coast from the flotilla's destination of Gaza, where the activists sought to run the Israeli naval blockade. According to GSF social media and ship tracker, about 30 vessels and at least 46 activists were detained by the naval force.
What They Call 'Security'
The activist group earlier called the incident an act of “extrajudicial high-seas piracy” in a press statement, coming four days after the flotilla embarked from Turkey on its second attempt since its first interception near Crete on April 29. Organizers claim the flotilla constitutes a peaceful and humanitarian mission, claims that Israel has repeatedly challenged. GSF rejected the claims of any of its members being violent as a pretext to carry out “war crimes and crimes against humanity against an unarmed, non-violent civil society mission composed of doctors, journalists, and humanitarians.” The activists have claimed, in addition to their objective of raising awareness about the ongoing Israeli blockade of the Hamas enclave, that they were bringing humanitarian aid to a starved Gaza Strip.
Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories rejected claims that Gaza was deprived of aid on social media, asserting that in contrast to the 600 aid trucks entering the Strip daily, there was no aid on the vessels. The interception of the flotilla was connected to the halt of the simultaneous land convoy that had set out from Zalitan on Saturday. The Maghreb Sumud Organization said on Sunday night that it had stopped in Sirte because it understood that Libyan forces would not allow it to pass. The city was the end point for the previous land convoy in June.
The flotilla had first been intercepted on April 29, with two of its leading activists detained for several days and the rest deposited on Greek shores. The flotilla had originally set out from Barcelona on April 15, after their April 12 launch date was disrupted by stormy weather. The flotilla met with additional vessels in Italy, before sailing with 56 vessels on April 26 to attempt their first blockade run of the year.
The Foreign Ministry said on X ahead of the interception that the flotilla served no humanitarian purpose, but was instead a provocation led by “two violent Turkish groups,” the Mavi Marmara and Humanitarian Relief Foundation. The ministry said, “The purpose of this provocation is to serve Hamas, to divert attention from Hamas’s refusal to disarm, and to obstruct progress on President Trump’s peace plan.” It also said, “Israel calls on all participants in this provocation to change course and turn back immediately.” The ministry later said, “Once again, a provocation for the sake of provocation: another so-called ‘humanitarian aid flotilla’ with no humanitarian aid.” It said two “violent” Turkish groups, Mavi Marmara and IHH, were involved in the flotilla, adding that IHH had been designated as a terrorist organization. The ministry also cited the Board of Peace, which oversees humanitarian activities in Gaza under UN Security Council Resolution 2803, saying the body had made clear that the flotilla was “only about publicity.” Israel said that since October 2025, more than 1.58 million tons of humanitarian aid and thousands of tons of medical supplies had entered Gaza. The ministry said, “Israel will not allow any breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza,” and called on participants “to change course and turn back immediately.”