Israel Blocks Flotilla, All Activists Arrested

The images from the cameras, which simultaneously broadcast live video of the navigation, began to fade with the soldiers' first boarding maneuvers: in less than an hour, the connections gradually dropped, forming a checkerboard pattern on the screen that eventually went completely black.

Thus the curtain falls on the standoff between the Sumud Flotilla and Israel ( LIVE STREAMING OF THE EVENTS HERE )   After a day spent by activists watching the horizon to see when the special forces' naval blockade would be lifted, it arrived off the coast of Gaza, just 70 miles from the Strip.

The military vessels first approached the crews, then boarded several vessels and detained the activists. The activists, who were waiting on deck with life jackets on, did not react. Israeli forces isolated the fleet's "mother" ship, the Alma, and shortly before 9:00 PM Italian time, boarded and detained the crew members. This acceleration in operations was therefore expected.

It's up to Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani to explain what the local authorities' strategy will likely be for the activists involved in the mission. "We have instructed the embassy in Tel Aviv and the consulates in Jerusalem," the head of the Farnesina explains, "to assist all the Italians who will be taken to the port of Ashdod but will then be expelled. I believe there will be a flight to accompany them to Europe along with the others within a couple of days." This will be a longer timeframe, given that Yom Kippur is celebrated in Israel until Thursday evening.

For his part , Defense Minister Guido Crosetto explained that the Flotilla was not the object of an "attack but of a blockade," hoping that "everything will happen calmly and rationally, without any problems."

The humanitarian fleet's journey culminated in the dead of night with the final alert from the Italian Navy frigate Alpino, which, before stopping, issued the second and final official warning to all vessels within 150 nautical miles of the Gaza coast. That was the point of no return: from then on, they were alone; if they had continued, none of the activists would have been able to board the Italian military vessel.

From then on, the most arduous crossing into the high-risk zone began, fraught with danger from the very beginning. The first signs of the IDF's presence were felt immediately, in the pitch darkness, around 3:00 a.m. on October 1, 120 miles from the destination. Approximately 1,200 men from Shayetet 13, Israel's naval special forces, were deployed, while another 600 were on land: given the Jewish holiday, they all received permission from the rabbinate to enter into action.

"Unidentified vessels approached several of our boats during the night, some with their lights off, and then moved away," the crews reported: tactical movements by the soldiers, which would have been used by the Israeli forces to take measurements of the vessels and identify the potential offensive capabilities of the people on board.

The vessels Sirius and Alma, which also carried one of the activists arrested during the boarding last July, Tony La Piccirella, were immediately targeted by the Shayetet 13, which had launched a cyber attack on their navigation devices a few hours earlier. The captain of one of the two vessels leading the fleet avoided a head-on collision by remotely disabling onboard communications while the warship proceeded nearby for several minutes.

Sirius and Alma would then be the first to be boarded by dinghies and military vessels armed with lights off, cannons and rifles on the bows. Then, little by little, it was the turn of all the boats. Some will inevitably sink: they will end up on the Mediterranean seabed, a graveyard of humanitarian vessels arriving just a nautical whisker away from Gaza's desperation.

Late in the evening, the Israeli Foreign Ministry published the video of the arrest of Greta Thunberg, who was on board one of the boats of the flotilla which is called “Hamas-Sumud”: «She and her friends are fine».

(Unioneonline)