More Gaza-bound flotilla ships intercepted by Israel

The Sumud Global Flotilla says three boats – the Gaza Sunbirds, the Alaa Al-Najjar and the Anas Al-Sharif – have stopped off the coast of Gaza

Israeli forces intercepted additional aid boats bound for Gaza in international waters, the Sumud Global Flotilla said on Wednesday.

The Sumud Global Flotilla said in a statement that three boats — the Gaza Sunbirds, the Alaa Al-Najjar and the Anas Al-Sharif — were intercepted 220 km off the coast of Gaza in the morning.

An Israeli army helicopter also attacked another ship, the Conscience, which was carrying more than 90 people, including journalists and doctors.

In a separate post on X, the Global Sumud Flotilla said the crew of the Milad boat was also “intercepted.”

The Israeli Foreign Ministry condemned the flotilla campaign as a “futile attempt” to “enter a combat zone,” adding that the ships and passengers had been transferred to an Israeli port and “should be expelled immediately.”

The Sumud Global Flotilla said the boats were carrying “$110,000 in aid in the form of medicines, respiratory equipment and nutritional supplies to Gaza hospitals, which are running out of supplies.”

Last week, Israeli naval forces intercepted some 470 activists from the flotilla in international waters, taking them first to the port of Ashdod and then to the Ketziot prison in the Negev desert, notorious for rampant sexual abuse and violence.

Activists are trying to break the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip and deliver aid to the famine-stricken territory, which has suffered more than two years of bombings that have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians and left it largely in ruins.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday condemned the Israeli intervention.

“The intervention in international waters against the Freedom Flotilla… is an act of piracy,” it said in a statement, calling it “an attack on civil activists, including Turkish citizens and members of parliament.”

Originally published by Middle East Eye on 10/08/2025