One of Netanyahu's most radical ministers boos the flotilla activists and calls them "terrorists."

BarcelonaIsraeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, one of the most radical members of Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition government, has called the Global Sumud Flotilla activists "terrorists" and "defenders of murderers." In a video posted on social media, Ben Gvir is seen booing the activists, who are sitting on the ground, and pointing his finger at them. "Here are the terrorists of the Flotilla, they are terrorists," the minister says.

According to Reuters, Ben Gvir's spokesperson confirmed that the video was recorded Thursday night at the Israeli port of Ashdod, where the 473 members of the mission were transferred.

There, all the activists were checked by the police and taken before border authorities for immigration procedures, accused of having entered Israel illegally, despite having been intercepted in international waters and forcibly transferred to Israel. This procedure continued throughout the night, and most of those arrested were transferred in a trickle of buses from the port of Ashdod to Ktzi'ot prison, located in southern Israel, in the Negev desert.

This Friday, Ben Gvir urged Netanyahu to keep the activists in prison, instead of processing their deportations. "I think they should stay here for several months in an Israeli prison so that they get used to the smell of the terrorist wing," he wrote to X.

First deportees

Spain's consolation refugee in Tel Aviv had access to the prison where Israel is holding the flotilla members and was able to come into contact with "some" of the group of Spanish citizens, according to Foreign Affairs sources. They added that the Spanish government representative "will continue to visit [the prison] until he has been able to visit all the Spaniards and they are all free and have returned to Spain."

This Friday morning, the first four activists were released and expelled from the country. Specifically, they were the four Italian MEPs and parliamentarians who were part of the flotilla, and have now been transferred to Tel Aviv airport to take a scheduled flight to Rome, according to the Italian Foreign Ministry.

They are MEPs Benedetta Scuderi, of the Greens-European Free Alliance, and Annalisa Corrado, of the Democratic Party (PD); Five Star Movement senator Marco Croatti, and PD MP Arturo Scotto. The Italian government of far-right leader Giorgia Meloni has demonstrated its direct relationship with the Israeli government in recent days, which led to Italy announcing yesterday that all activists would be deported on flights to Madrid and London early next week.

The Israeli government will take those who accept voluntary deportation to the airport to board a deportation flight, as it has already done with the four Italian parliamentarians. According to a prison official, "the majority" of the detainees agreed to be deported. According to the Efe news agency, a European diplomatic source who has visited the activists in prison, those who have agreed to be deported will board planes to leave Israel as soon as possible, probably in the next two days.

For those who do not accept voluntary deportation, a judicial procedure will be opened in which a judge will decide on their deportation, in a process that requires more time, but that will also end with their expulsion from the country, probably on flights to Madrid and London on October 6 and 7, as Italy has announced.

The legal team assisting the detainees has assured that the first hearings have been held without representation by lawyers, which they describe as a "violation of the right to defense."

The last boat is intercepted

This Friday morning, one last small boat of the Global Sumud Flotilla, the small Marinette, has managed to approach the coast of Gaza just before being intercepted by the Israeli army. With five people on board, the small boat had been delayed after Israel intercepted the rest of the flotilla, which consisted of 44 vessels, on Thursday. At around 5 a.m. this Friday, Catalan time, the Marinette It was, according to its GPS, about 43 nautical miles off the coast of Gaza.

The boat's camera broadcast the small boat's final journey live. At one point, its crew wrote "We see a boat" on a sign and showed it to the camera, as there was no sound at that point. They then prepared for the Israeli soldiers to board, wearing life jackets. Shortly after, an Israeli military boat could be seen on the horizon behind the boat, while the crew members disappeared from the image, walking along the deck toward the other end of the boat.

A few minutes later, the Israeli military boat was seen again, and a boat with about ten soldiers on board made the journey from there to the Marinette. Armed with rifles and fully equipped, the soldiers boarded the flotilla boat just before the video signal was finally cut off.

In a statement following the interception of the last boat, the Global Sumud Flotilla stated that "this is not the end" of the mission and that it will continue fighting "until the genocide in Gaza ends" and "until Palestine is free."