Israel Detains Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg, who became famous worldwide as a climate change activist while still a school student, is now 22 years old and the canvas of activism has broadened to encompass geopolitics. On June 9, she was detained by the Israeli navy while on a yacht that sought to create awareness about the conditions of the Palestinians in Gaza.

That yacht Madleen is an initiative by an organisaiton called the Freedom Flotilla Coalition that periodically sends such vessels to highlight the Israeli blockade. It carried aid but the real impact was to be in the publicity garnered about Israel's countermeasures that have decimated Gaza and brought it to famine.

Thunberg accompanied the Madleen which left Italy on June 1. When it reached international waters near its destination, defence forces boarded and took control of the yacht. It was then brought to Israel.  Thunberg and the others had prerecorded video clips saying they had been kidnapped. This was uploaded on social media once the Israelis took the ship.

Israel brushed it off as a publicity stunt. Its foreign ministry derided it as a 'selfie yacht' and posted on X that the passengers would be returned to their home countries. It wrote: 'There are ways to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip — they do not involve Instagram selfies. The tiny amount of aid that was on the yacht and not consumed by the "celebrities" will be transferred to Gaza through real humanitarian channels.'