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israel katz
'We're Not Scared': Freedom Flotilla Crew Approaches Gaza Despite New Israeli Threats
"Israel's Defense Minister has once again threatened unlawful force against civilians, attempting to justify violence with baseless smears," the crew members said. "We will not be intimidated."
Jun 08, 2025
As they drew nearer to Gaza on Sunday, the 12 crew members of the Freedom Flotilla vessel the Madleen remained undeterred in their mission to deliver humanitarian aid to the besieged enclave, even as an Israeli official issued new threats.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz announced on social media Sunday afternoon that he had instructed the Israel Defense Forces "to act to prevent the Madleen hate flotilla from reaching the shores of Gaza—and to take whatever measures are necessary to that end."
"To the antisemitic Greta and her fellow Hamas propaganda spokespeople, I say clearly: You should turn back—because you will not reach Gaza," Katz said, referring to Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, one of the 12 people on board. "Israel will act against any attempt to break the blockade or assist terrorist organizations—at sea, in the air, and on land."
"What we face is nothing compared to what Palestinians in Gaza endure."
The crew members, however, said they would not turn back and that they hoped to reach Gaza by Monday.
"Israel's Defense Minister has once again threatened unlawful force against civilians, attempting to justify violence with baseless smears," the group posted on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla Instagram. "We will not be intimidated."
"The Madleen is a peaceful civilian vessel, unarmed and sailing in international waters with humanitarian aid and human rights defenders. This mission is independent, guided only by conscience and solidarity with Gaza," the crew members wrote.
Posting at around 7:00 p.m. local time, they added that they were around 160 nautical miles from Gaza and had experienced brief signal jamming, but that their tracker was currently working again.
"We call on world governments to demand Israel stand down. It has no right to obstruct our mission or enforce its illegal and brutal blockade," they said.
Individual crew members also spoke out.
Palestinian Member of the European Parliament Rima Hassan said on social media that she expected Israel to illegally detain the crew members within 24 hours.
"When we are no longer able to communicate with you, I'm counting on you to continue the mobilization that has been so valuable to us throughout this journey," she said.
Hassen further toldAl Jazeera that the crew would "stay mobilized until the last minute until Israel cuts the internet and networks."
"We're not scared of them," German human rights activist and crew member Yasemin Acar said, as Al Jazeera reported. "The message they have been sending us—that we cannot come closer—is not making us step back."
Brazilian activist and crew member Thiago Avila told Al Jazeera that the crew had observed drones flying overhead.
"We know Israeli forces are prepared to confront us with weapons, but we are not afraid," he said, adding, "What we face is nothing compared to what Palestinians in Gaza endure."
Turkish crew member Huseyin Suayb, meanwhile, told Al Jazeera that spirits remained high.
"We are still heading toward Gaza, there is very little distance left. These are critical hours. God willing, we will be in Gaza tomorrow, as long as we do not face any obstruction," he said.
Al Jazeera correspondent Omar Faiad, also on board the Madleen, said the crew members were trying to prepare themselves for any scenario. There is reason for concern, as Israel has a history of attacking other ships that have attempted to reach Gaza to protest the blockade that Israel and Egypt have enforced around the strip since Hamas assumed control there in 2007.
In 2010, Israeli commandos killed nine activists on board the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara, and a 10th later died from sustained injuries. In May, drones damaged the Freedom Flotilla ship the Conscience as it sat in international waters off Malta, with activists attributing the attacks to Israel.
"They may attack us again, threaten us, or resort to personal violence. They may target our lives," Suayb told Al Jazeera. "But as you know, we've experienced this before. Even the slightest reflex shown in self-defence is labelled as a weapon, as terrorism. We are completely peaceful activists. Not a single one of us knows how to fight or use a weapon. We do not pose any kind of threat."
The Madleen set sail from Sicily on June 1, in protest not only of the long-standing blockade against Gaza but also the Israeli bombardment and restrictions of humanitarian aid into the strip since October 2023, which several human rights experts and organizations consider a genocide. Due to a total blockade of aid between March and May, aid organizations warn that Palestinians in Gaza are in danger of starvation, and the Madleen carries much-needed goods such as flour, rice, and baby formula.
"The Flotilla Giants are approaching Gaza, scheduled to arrive tomorrow," United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese wrote on social media Sunday afternoon. "It is not only the aid, it is the HUMANITY THEY CARRY. For all of us. May Israel not endanger them as with the previous flotilla. MAY THIS BE THE TIME ISRAEL LAYS DOWN THE GENOCIDAL MACHINERY."
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'Only Hellfire': Israel Says Lifesaving Aid, Troop Withdrawal Off the Table for Gaza
"Israel's defense ministers can't stop publicly confessing to war crimes," said one U.S. journalist.
Apr 16, 2025
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Wednesday that the U.S.-backed genocidal policy of blocking lifesaving humanitarian aid from entering the Gaza Strip will continue, and that Israel Defense Forces troops will remain in the embattled Palestinian enclave indefinitely.
"Israel's policy is clear: No humanitarian aid will enter Gaza, and blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population," Katz said. "No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid."
Katz had initially said that Israel would eventually allow the resumption of humanitarian aid into Gaza, but later clarified his remarks following outrage from far-right members of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel's national security minister, warned against repeating what he called the "historic mistake" of letting any aid into Gaza, where a "complete siege" declared in response to the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023 has fueled widespread starvation, sickness, and other crises.
"It's a shame we don't learn from our mistakes. As long as our hostages are dying in the tunnels, there is no reason for a gram of food or aid to enter Gaza," Ben-Gvir said on social media.
Israeli Culture Minister Miki Zohar also discussed the policy Wednesday, asserting that "the despicable murderers in Gaza deserve no humanitarian assistance from any civilian or military mechanism."
"Only hellfire should be poured on the makers of terrorism until the last hostage returns from Gaza," Zohar added.
Israeli media reported Wednesday that senior government security officials believe Gaza will run out of humanitarian supplies and food in about a month.
Legal experts say the siege is a war crime, and United Nations experts and human rights groups have called Israel's blockade and use of starvation as a weapon of war acts of genocide.
The International Court of Justice—which is weighing a genocide case against Israel—last March issued a provisional order to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza. Many critics say Israel has ignored the directive.
Netanyahu and former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who ordered the siege, are also fugitives from the International Criminal Court, which last year issued warrants to arrest the pair for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the siege.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which advocates for people kidnapped by Hamas during the October 7 attack, on Wednesday accused the Netanyahu government of "choosing to seize territory over hostages."
"The time has come to stop the false promises and slogans. It is impossible to continue the war and at the same time release all the hostages," the group added, echoing the growing anti-war sentiment among
Israeli troops and the general public.
Human rights groups around the world have condemned Israel's blockade of Gaza. On Wednesday, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières called on the Israeli government to "immediately lift the inhumane and deadly siege on Gaza, protect the lives of Palestinians and humanitarian and medical personnel, and for all parties to restore and sustain the cease-fire" that Israel unilaterally broke last month.
Amande Bazerolle, the medical group's emergency coordinator in Gaza, said in a statement that "Gaza has been turned into a mass grave of Palestinians and those coming to their assistance."
"We are witnessing in real time the destruction and forced displacement of the entire population in Gaza," Bazerolle added. "With nowhere safe for Palestinians or those trying to help them, the humanitarian response is severely struggling under the weight of insecurity and critical supply shortages, leaving people with few, if any, options for accessing care."
Katz also said Wednesday that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) troops would remain in so-called security zones in Gaza, Lebanon, and Syria for an indefinite period.
"Unlike in the past, the IDF is not evacuating areas that have been cleared and seized," and "will remain in the security zones as a buffer between the enemy and [Israeli] communities in any temporary or permanent situation in Gaza—as in Lebanon and Syria," Katz said.
Earlier this month, Katz said Israel will be "seizing large areas that will be added to the security zones of the state of Israel for the protection of fighting forces and the settlements," a reference to plans by far-right members of Netanyahu's government for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza.
Israeli soldiers have blown the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by IDF troops in what some call the "kill zone" along the border with Israel, including indiscriminate killing and wholesale deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure.
Recent reporting has also revealed the IDF is planning to take as much as 20% of Gaza, including the entire depopulated city of Rafah. U.S. President Donald Trump has also proposed an American takeover of Gaza, the expulsion of its Palestinians, and the development of the "Riviera of the Middle East" in the coastal strip.
Almost all of Gaza's more than 2 million people have been forcibly displaced by Israel's onslaught, some of them multiple times. The 558-day assault has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing in Gaza, according officials there.
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Israel Preparing to Seize Ethnically Cleansed City of Rafah as Part of Permanent Buffer Zone
"The entire city of Rafah is being swallowed up," warned one Israeli human rights group. "The massive death zone... continues to grow by the day."
Apr 09, 2025
The Israel Defense Forces is preparing to permanently seize the largely depopulated Palestinian city of Rafah—comprising about 20% of Gaza's land area—and incorporate what was once the embattled enclave's third-largest city into a borderland buffer that IDF troops have described as a "kill zone" rife with alleged war crimes.
The Israeli newspaper Haaretzreported Wednesday that "defense sources" said an area from the so-called Philadelphi corridor along Gaza's border with Egypt and the Morag corridor—the name of a Jewish colony that once stood between Rafah and Khan Younis—will be incorporated into the buffer zone that runs along the entire length of the Israeli border.
The affected area includes the entire city of Rafah—which is thousands of years old—and surrounding neighborhoods, which were home to more than 250,000 people before Israeli launched what United Nations experts have called a genocidal assault on Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023.
As Haaretz's Yaniv Kubovitch reported:
Expanding the buffer zone to this extent carries significant implications. Not only does it cover a vast area—approximately 75 square kilometers (about 29 square miles), or roughly one-fifth of the Gaza Strip—but severing it would effectively turn Gaza into an enclave within Israeli-controlled territory, cutting it off from the Egyptian border. According to defense sources, this consideration played a central role in the decision to focus on Rafah...
It has yet to be decided whether the entire area will simply be designated a buffer zone that is off-limits to civilians—as has been done in other parts of the border area—or whether the area will be fully cleared and all buildings demolished, effectively wiping out the city of Rafah.
In recent weeks and for the second time during the war, IDF troops forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands residents from Rafah and other areas of southern Gaza in an ethnic cleansing campaign reminiscent of the 1948 Nakba, or "catastrophe" in Arabic, through which the modern state of Israel was founded. Most Gaza residents today are Nakba survivors or descendants of Palestinians who fled or were expelled from other parts of Palestine in 1948.
Earlier this month, Israeli officials including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—a fugitive from the International Criminal Court wanted for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza—and Defense Minister Israel Katz announced plans to seize "large areas" of southern Gaza to be added to what Katz called "security zones" and "settlements."
Jewish recolonization of Gaza is a major objective of many right-wing Israelis. Last month, Katz announced the creation of a new IDF directorate tasked with ethnically cleansing northern Gaza, which Israeli leaders euphemistically call "voluntary emigration." Katz said the agency would be run "in accordance with the vision of U.S. President Donald Trump," who in February said that the United States would "take over" Gaza after emptying the strip of its over 2 million Palestinians, and then transform the enclave into the "Riviera of the Middle East." Trump subsequently attempted to walk back some of his comments.
Earlier this week, the Israeli human rights group Breaking the Silence published testimonies of IDF officers, soldiers, and veterans who took part in the creation of the buffer zone. Soldiers recounted orders to "deliberately, methodically, and systematically annihilate whatever was within the designated perimeter, including entire residential neighborhoods, public buildings, educational institutions, mosques, and cemeteries, with very few exceptions."
Palestinians who dared enter the perimeter, even accidentally, were targeted, including civilian men, women, children, and elders. One officer featured in the report toldThe Guardian: "We're killing [men], we're killing their wives, their children, their cats, their dogs. We're destroying their houses and pissing on their graves."
Most of Gaza's more than 2 million residents have been forcibly displaced at least once since Israel launched the war, which has left more than 180,000 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Widespread starvation and disease have been fueled by a "complete siege" which, among other Israeli policies and actions, has been cited in the ongoing South Africa-led genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.
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