TEL AVIV (Dispatches) -- Israel has ordered the military to block an aid boat headed for Gaza with 12 activists on board, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg.
“I have instructed the military to prevent the Madleen flotilla from reaching Gaza,” war minister Israel Katz said in a statement from his office.
“To Greta the antisemite and her companions, Hamas propaganda mouthpieces, I say clearly: turn back because you will not reach Gaza.”
Thunberg and 11 other activists set off from Sicily on June 1, carrying urgent supplies for besieged and starving Palestinians. 
The aid includes baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics. 
According to reports from Israel’s Broadcasting Corporation (KAN) and Channel 12, the Israeli navy is preparing to intercept the vessel, seize it, and tow it to Ashdod port. 
The army also plans to arrest and deport the activists on board the boat.
European parliament member Rima Hassan told AFP on Sunday that they would press on until the last minute.
“There are twelve of us civilians on board. We are not armed. There is only humanitarian aid,” Hassan said.
She shared an open letter on X signed by more than 200 fellow European lawmakers calling for safe passage for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition.
In the letter, the lawmakers urged that the safety of those aboard the sailboat Madleen be guaranteed, that it be allowed safe and unhindered passage to Gaza, and that humanitarian aid be permitted immediate entry into the region.
Katz said that Israel would not allow anyone to break the maritime siege of Gaza. “Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade by sea, air, or land,” he said.
Last month, another vessel organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), the Conscience, failed to continue its journey after being struck by two drones near Maltese waters. 
FFC-organized ships have been attempting to break Israel’s 18-year land, sea and naval blockade on the Gaza Strip for nearly two decades. 
In 2010, the Mavi Marmara flotilla mission was attacked by Israeli forces, who boarded the ship and killed ten activists.
Since then, Israeli troops have frequently intercepted and seized vessels attempting to break the siege. 
Speaking from the aid boat on Tuesday, Thunberg said that governments had failed Palestinians, and so it fell “on us to step up and be the adults in the room”. 
“We cannot sit by and allow this to happen. We are watching… a genocide happening, following decades and decades of systematic oppression, ethnic cleansing, occupation,” she said. 
“We are just human beings, very concerned about what’s happening, and do not accept what is going on.”
Israel imposed a complete blockade on all humanitarian aid to Gaza for 11 weeks, before partially lifting it on May 19 to allow very limited United Nations aid deliveries, and a U.S.-backed scheme widely panned as unworkable. 
Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, on Sunday condemned the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), accusing it of enabling Israel’s 
policies under the guise of aid.
Her remarks came after Israeli forces shot dead Palestinians near a GHF aid distribution point earlier Sunday. Albanese described the initiative as “humanitarian camouflage” and a key tactic in what she termed an ongoing genocide.
“History will prove right those who had sounded the alarm, and it will be of no consolation: the damage is done. Thanks to the moral & political corruption of the world we live in,” she posted on X.
At least 31 people were killed by Israeli forces across the Gaza Strip on Sunday, according to medical sources at local hospitals.  
Among the casualties, at least 13 Palestinians were shot and killed near an aid distribution point operated by the so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Around 100 others were wounded in the same attack.
The civilians had been heading to an aid distribution centre west of Rafah, near a site run by the GHF. The United Nations refuses to work with the GHF, citing concerns over its practices and neutrality.
The new deaths brought the total death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza to 54,880 since October 7, 2023, with 126,227 wounded.
The health ministry in Gaza said the tally includes 4,603 dead and 14,186 wounded since Israel resumed the war on March 18, ending a nearly two-month ceasefire.