161 Gaza aid flotilla detainees land in Greece

Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg raises her fist upon arrival alongside activists at the arrivals area of Athens International Airport. Photo / Aris Messinis, AFP

Greta Thunberg has landed in Athens alongside 160 other nationals from 16 European countries expelled to Greece by Israel for taking part in a Gaza aid flotilla, AFP journalists saw.

The 22-year-old Swedish climate campaigner had been among hundreds of people who had been on the 45-vessel flotilla that had unsuccessfully tried to break through an Israeli blockade to deliver aid to Gaza.

The United Nations says famine has taken hold in that Palestinian territory after two years of devastating war.

At Athens International Airport, activists unfurled a huge Palestinian flag in the arrivals hall and chanted “Freedom for Palestine” and “Long live the flotilla!” to welcome Thunberg and the other activists back to Europe, AFP reporters saw.

On arrival at the airport, Thunberg called the Global Sumud Flotilla “the biggest ever attempt to break Israel’s illegal and inhumane siege by sea”.

“That this mission has to exist is a shame!” she added, urging the world to act to prevent Israel’s “genocide” of the Palestinians.

“We are not even seeing the bare minimum from our governments,” Thunberg said.

Ten sent to Slovakia

The Greek foreign ministry had earlier said a “special repatriation flight landed safely in Athens” with the 27 Greeks who set sail with the flotilla.

“This flight also facilitated the return of 134 nationals from 15 European countries,” it added.

Israel’s foreign ministry said on Monday (local time) it had deported 171 activists to Greece and Slovakia.

Bratislava’s foreign ministry confirmed that one Slovak had returned to the central European country, along with nine other people, originally from the Netherlands, Canada or the United States.

The Global Sumud flotilla departed from Barcelona in Spain in early September.

The vessels were boarded by the Israeli navy off Egypt and the Gaza Strip between October 1 and 3.

Israel – which accuses the flotilla of being an offshoot of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist movement with which it is at war in the Gaza Strip – claims that the boats violated a prohibited zone and that little humanitarian aid was found on board the vessels.

The ships were forcibly diverted to the Israeli port of Ashdod. According to Israeli police, more than 470 people aboard the flotilla boats were arrested.

The first deportations began on October 2. Currently, 138 flotilla participants remain in detention in Israel, the foreign ministry told AFP.

– Agence France-Presse