3 Gaza boat activists released, several remain in custody

A New Zealand Green Party MP and two foreign reporters were released from Israeli detention on Thursday, a day after they attempted to sail into the Gaza Strip.

Thirteen women, including Nobel Peace Prize winner Mairead Maguire, were detained on Wednesday evening after their sailboat was stopped around 35 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.

Ynet reported late Thursday that several other activists would be leaving overnight, but that three of the activists were refusing to leave Israel voluntarily.

The interception, in which female Israeli soldiers were deployed, was carried out without violence or resistance, and the boat was brought into Ashdod port late Wednesday.

Most of the women activists were being held Thursday pending deportation.

New Zealand MP Marama Davidson was on a flight home, according to the New Zealand Herald.

“We are relieved to heard that Marama is well and that she received no ill-treatment during her arrest and detention in Israel,” said Green Party co-leader Metiria Turei.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabin Haddad said two of the women, both journalists, had already left prison for the airport but the others were being held in the Givon prison in central Israel for up to four days before being deported.

“During these 96 hours they can see a judge to appeal their detention,” she added.

The Zaytouna-Oliva set sail from Barcelona in September with women of various nationalities aboard including Maguire, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976 for her peace efforts in Northern Ireland.

Dubbed “Women’s Boat to Gaza,” the boat was part of the wider Freedom Flotilla Coalition that consists of pro-Palestinian boats that regularly seek to go to Gaza to try to break the blockade.

The Israeli navy said it stopped them to prevent a “breach of the lawful maritime blockade” of the Palestinian enclave.

Organizers said among the other women detained were Algerian MP Samira Douaifia, Swedish politician Jeannette Escanilla and Ann Wright, a former US Army colonel and State Department official who resigned over the 2003 Iraq war.

Others came from Australia, Malaysia, Norway, Russia, Spain, South Africa, Sweden and Britain.

“We are very disappointed for Gazans who were waiting for us, but we will continue. As long as there is a blockade, there will be flotillas,” Claude Leostic, spokeswoman for the flotilla movement who herself attempted to sail to Gaza in 2011, told AFP.

She said they had had no contact with the women since the boat was stopped, “but when I myself was arrested in 2011, we were placed in detention centers and interrogated by intelligence services.”

Gaza-based organizer Adham Abu Salmiyeh said in a statement he wanted the women to visit “Gaza to brief them on the deteriorating humanitarian situation after 10 years of blockade and collective punishment.”

But he said they were confident they had sent a message to the world.

The Israeli navy said it had intercepted the sailboat after advising it “numerous times to change course prior to the action.”

It said its forces had boarded and searched the sailboat, describing the operation as “uneventful.”

The vessel was then taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, about 30 kilometers (18 miles) north of Gaza.

Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, condemned the interception of the boat, while terror group Hamas — which runs Gaza — called it “state terrorism.”

“We strongly condemn the Israeli aggression against the international flotilla that tried to break the illegal siege imposed by Israel on 1.8 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip,” Erekat said in a statement calling for their release.

Israel maintains a blockade to keep material it believes could be used for military purposes from entering the enclave.

Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the United States and the European Union.