10-6-2025
Activist Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel Tuesday, the country’s Foreign Ministry said, a day after the Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized by the Israeli military.
In a post on X, the Foreign Ministry shared a photo of Thunberg on a plane, saying she had departed Israel and was headed to France before continuing on to Sweden.
On arrival in Paris on Tuesday, Thunberg accused Israel of “kidnapping us in international waters and taking us against our will to Israel”.
“This is yet another intentional violation of rights that is added to the list of countless other violations that Israel is committing,” Thunberg, 22, told reporters at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, stressing that her own experience was “nothing compared to what the Palestinians are going through”.
Adalah, a legal rights group in Israel representing Thunberg and the other activists, said Thunberg, two other activists and a journalist had agreed to be deported and leave Israel. Other activists refused deportation, were being held in detention and their case was set to be heard by Israeli authorities.
Thunberg was one of 12 passengers on board the Madleen, a boat carrying aid destined for people in war-torn Gaza.
Israeli naval forces seized the boat early Monday about 200 kilometres (125 miles) off of Gaza’s coast, according to the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, the group that organised the journey. The boat, accompanied by Israel’s navy, arrived in the Israeli port of Ashdod Monday evening, according to Israel’s Foreign Ministry. AFP