Israel said on Monday, October 6, that it deported 171 more activists who were detained while taking part in an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, including Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg. The foreign ministry said in a post on X that "171 additional provocateurs from the Hamas-Sumud flotilla, including Greta Thunberg, were deported today from Israel to Greece and Slovakia."
It added that the deportees were citizens of several countries, including Greece, Italy, France and the United States. Photos shared with the post showed Thunberg alongside two other women walking through Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport wearing the grey tracksuits used in Israeli prisons.
Israel's Foreign Ministry told Agence France-Presse that 138 activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla were still in Israeli custody. The 45-vessel flotilla had been aiming to break an Israeli blockade to deliver aid to Gaza, where the United Nations says famine has taken hold after two years of devastating conflict.
Israel started intercepting the flotilla vessels in international waters on Wednesday. An Israeli official said on Thursday that boats with more than 400 people on board had been prevented from reaching the Palestinian territory.
International activists who arrived in Istanbul after being deported from Israel said on Saturday they had been subjected to violence and "treated like animals." In its post on X on Monday, Israel's Foreign Ministry said that "all the legal rights of the participants in this PR stunt were and will continue to be fully upheld." "The lies they are spreading are part of their pre-planned fake news campaign," it added.