UK avoids condemning Israeli seizure of British-flagged aid boat to Gaza
Activists aboard the Gaza-bound aid boat Madleen early on 9 June 2025
Rayhan Uddin reports in Middle East Eye on 9 June 2025:
The UK has avoided condemning the Israeli seizure of a British-flagged aid vessel heading towards Gaza in the early hours of Monday morning.
The Madleen boat, whose 12-person crew included Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French lawmaker Rima Hassan, was intercepted by Israeli naval commandos at 3:02am CEST.
The vessel was in international waters at the time of the interception, 40 nautical miles from the Egyptian coast and 120 nautical miles from the nearest point in Gaza, the flotilla’s organisers told Middle East Eye.
Asked by MEE if the government condemned the interception of a UK-flagged vessel, the Foreign Office avoided directly answering the question. Instead, it referred to a statement by Downing Street, which said that the UK wanted to see Israel resolve the detention of the vessel “safely with restraint, in line with international humanitarian law”.
A spokesperson for the prime minister added that more aid must get into Gaza, with “unimpeded entry”. There was no further comment on the raid on a vessel that was flying a British flag. Under international maritime law, the UK has full jurisdiction over the vessel, and a legal duty to protect the crew of the boat.
A spokesperson for the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), which organised the boat, told MEE that the mission had not had any official contact or cooperation from British authorities. “Israel had absolutely no authority to attack a UK flagged vessel – a sovereign UK territory in international waters,” lawyer Huwaida Arraf, of the FFC, told MEE.
Arraf added that not only was UK sovereignty violated by the attack, but also the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea and International Court of Justice provisional measures compelling Israel to allow unimpeded aid access into Gaza.
“The UK should have spoken up early. It did not,” said Arraf. “The civilians on that UK vessel were actually carrying out the obligations of the United Kingdom, which is the obligations of every country around the world: to act to prevent genocide.”