[IMPORTANT] Hamas launches foot assault against settlements.

Post Reply New Topic

Local health officials said Israeli forces killed six Palestinians near an aid distribution center in southern Gaza on Saturday night, the fourth such incident in a week.

The Palestinians were killed in west Rafah “as citizens gathered in the hope of receiving aid near the distribution point,” according to Marwan Al-Hams, director of field hospitals for the Palestinian Health Ministry.

This is the fourth incident in a week where local health officials said Palestinians were killed near aid distribution centers.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz has vowed to block an aid vessel carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists from reaching Gaza, by “any means necessary.”

The Madleen departed Sicily last Sunday, aiming to breach Israel’s naval blockade on Gaza, deliver humanitarian aid, and draw attention to the worsening humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

According to a live tracker on board the vessel, it was sailing north of the Egyptian coastal city of Rosetta on Sunday morning, roughly 160 nautical miles from Gaza.

Katz said Sunday that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces to “prevent the ‘Madelaine’ hate flotilla from reaching the shores of Gaza.”

“To the anti-Semitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propaganda spokespeople, I say clearly: You should turn back — because you will not reach Gaza,” he posted on Telegram

Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or aid terrorist organizations — at sea, in the air and on land.”

On Sunday, a press officer for the Madleen, Hay Sha Wiya, said the crew was “preparing for the possibility of interception.”

They also said the boat’s signal had been jammed earlier in the day, causing the live tracker to display the boat’s coordinates as being in Jordan.

Among those on board the ship are Thiago Avila, a Brazilian activist and politician, Rima Hassan, a French member of the European Parliament, and Baptiste Andre, a French doctor who is expected to assist passengers injured in potential confrontations with Israeli forces.

“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” Thunberg said last week.

“Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity. And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s not even near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide.”

Israel says it has retrieved the body of a 35-year-old Thai hostage who was abducted into Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.

Nattapong Pinta was among 31 Thais taken by the Hamas militant group. Thailand’s foreign ministry in a statement Saturday confirmed that Pinta, the last Thai hostage in Gaza, was confirmed dead. It said the bodies of two others have yet to be retrieved.

The ministry has said 46 Thais have been killed during the war. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas. They were among tens of thousands of Thai workers in Israel. Here’s a look at what they were doing.

Why are there so many Thais in Israel?
Israel once relied heavily on Palestinian workers, but it started bringing in large numbers of migrant workers after the 1987-93 Palestinian revolt, known as the first Intifada.

Most came from Thailand, and Thais remain the largest group of foreign agricultural laborers in Israel today, earning considerably more than they can at home.

Thailand and Israel implemented a bilateral agreement a decade ago to ease the way for workers in the agriculture sector.

Israel has come under criticism for the conditions under which the Thai farm laborers work. A Human Rights Watch report in 2015 said they often were housed in makeshift and inadequate accommodation and “were paid salaries significantly below the legal minimum wage, forced to work long hours in excess of the legal maximum, subjected to unsafe working conditions and denied their right to change employers.”

A watchdog group found more recently that most were still paid below the legal minimum wage.

How many Thai nationals work in Israel?
There were about 30,000 Thai workers, primarily working on farms, in Israel prior to the attack by Hamas.

In the wake of the attack, some 7,000 returned home, primarily on government evacuation flights, but higher wages than those available at home have continued to attract new arrivals.

The Thai ambassador to Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya, recently said there are now more than 38,000 Thai workers in the country.

What happened after some left?
Faced with a labor shortage in the wake of the exodus, Israel’s Agriculture Ministry announced incentives to try to attract foreign workers back to evacuated areas.

Among other things, it offered to extend work visas and to pay bonuses of about $500 a month.

Thailand’s Labor Ministry granted 3,966 Thai workers permission to work in Israel in 2024, keeping Israel in the top four destinations for Thais working abroad last year.

Thai migrant workers generally come from poorer regions of the country, especially the northeast, and even before the bonuses, the jobs in Israel paid many times what they could make at home

The Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition reported that IDF forces intercepted it at around 3 a.m. on Monday morning, the organization posted on its Telegram group.

The post noted that all connection to the 'Madleen' had been lost. Activists reported being attacked by drones that sprayed a white irritant substance on the boat a few minutes before they were intercepted.

According to posts from the flotilla's Telegram, the boats' communication signals were jammed, and loud, disturbing sounds were being played on their radio.

Israel intercepted on Monday a vessel carrying Greta Thunberg and other activists that was attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade to deliver aid to Gaza.

The Israeli Foreign Ministry said the British-flagged yacht Madleen was “safely making its way to the shores of Israel” after being boarded by Israeli forces.

"The passengers are expected to return to their home countries,” the ministry said in a post on X.

Hamas condemned the vessel’s interception, saying in a statement, “Gaza is not alone, but rather enjoys the support of the free people of the world.”

X
“The maritime zone off the coast of Gaza is closed to naval traffic as part of a legal naval blockade,” a soldier can be heard saying via loudspeaker in a video posted on X by the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

“If you wish to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, you are able to do so through the port of Ashdod,” the soldier says, referring to an Israeli cargo port.

The activists can be seen raising their hands as lights flash from boats surrounding the vessel, according to a video posted by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which said it had lost all contact with the crew.

United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said she was on the phone with the ship’s captain while it was being approached by the navy.

“Madleen must be released immediately,” she said in a post on X.

In a statement, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said he had instructed the military to “screen the October 7 massacre video to the flotilla passengers upon their arrival at Ashdod Port.”

Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel on Tuesday, the Israeli Foreign Ministry said, the day after she and other activists were detained while trying to deliver a symbolic shipment of aid to Gaza by sea.

In a post on X, the ministry said that Thunberg, 22, had “just departed Israel on a flight to Sweden” via France, and shared images of her on a plane.

That came after the ministry said in a statement that a number of people detained by Israel aboard the intercepted British-flagged yacht Madleen had arrived at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport to “return to their home countries.”

Thunberg was among 12 activists undertaking the journey to attempt to circumvent Israel's aid blockade of Gaza when they were stopped by the Israeli navy and brought ashore at the port of Ashdod.

The statement added that those activists who refused to sign deportation papers and leave Israel would be brought before a judicial authority “to authorize their deportation.”

Adalah, the legal center for Arab minority rights in Israel, said in a statement Monday that it had met with 11 of the 12 people detained following the Madleen’s interception before some of them, who consented to deportation, flew out of Tel Aviv.

It said at least four people had been deported or were being deported from Israel, while eight remained in detention at Givon prison in Ramla and planned to contest their deportation before an Israeli tribunal. They were expected to appear before a immigration detention review tribunal Tuesday morning.

Multiple aid workers were killed after a bus was attacked in Gaza on Wednesday night, according to a US-backed humanitarian aid organization which accused Hamas of carrying out the assault.

Hamas has yet to respond to the allegations.

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid initiative, said that a bus carrying more than two dozen of its team members was attacked by Hamas at around 10 p.m. local time.

“We are still gathering facts, but what we know is devastating: there are at least five fatalities, multiple injuries, and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage,” GHF said in a statement.

The group was en route to a distribution center in the area west of Khan Younis, GHF said, adding further details would be provided once they became known.

“We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms,” the GHF said in a statement.

The GHF also accused Hamas of repeatedly threatening the organization in recent days.

On Sunday, Hamas media said its forces have “full authority and mandate to strike decisively against any entity or individual collaborating with the enemy’s plans or with any rogue, criminal, or traitorous elements that violate the law and the traditions of our people.”

“All agents, thieves, and armed criminal gangs are considered legitimate targets for the resistance and its security apparatus,” the militant group said.

The GHF was established amid Israeli accusations that Hamas is stealing aid in Gaza and profiting off its sale but the organization has been controversial from the get-go and criticized by multiple international aid agencies.

The humanitarian situation in Gaza remains desperate.

Multiple Palestinians have been killed by gunfire near aid distribution sites since GHF began operations