Ten activists and journalists detained by the Israeli navy on a cargo ship carrying humanitarian supplies to the Gaza Strip have returned to Lebanon, security officials and activists said.
The nine Lebanese and a Palestinian resident of Lebanon arrived early yesterday, with the help of the UN peacekeeping force, across the Lebanese-Israeli border at the coastal town of Naqoura.
The 10 were among 18 activists and crew held for several hours after their ship was seized by the Israeli navy enforcing a blockade of the Palestinian territory.
PHOTO: AP
All 18 people aboard were expelled to different destinations, apparently according to nationality.
Lebanese TV station al-Jadeed said one of the passengers, 86-year-old former Greek Catholic archbishop of Jerusalem Hillarion Capucci, was taken to the Golan Heights where he crossed into Syria.
Three others were to be flown out to London early yesterday, Israeli officials have said.
It was not immediately clear where the four other people detained were headed.
“It was long and difficult,” Salam Khoder, correspondent for the pan-Arab al-Jazeera television, said of the ordeal.
She and Hani Suleiman, one of the organizers, said the Israelis intercepted and detained the ship and its passengers in Egyptian territorial waters.
Speaking on al-Jazeera at the border crossing, she said the Israeli navy opened fire three times. Later, about 25 soldiers boarded the ship.
Soldiers hit her, she said, along with another female reporter for Lebanese TV al-Jadeed, Ugarith Dandash, as well as Suleiman.
Those aboard were blindfolded, handcuffed and separated, Khoder said. Then they were interrogated by plainclothes agents and their belongings and equipment taken away. They were later taken to Israel’s port of Ashdod along with the ship.
Israeli officials weren’t immediately available for comment.
The activists refused to answer questions, Khoder said.
Meanwhile, two rockets fired from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip landed in southern Israel yesterday but there were no casualties or damage, the Israeli military said.
A fragile ceasefire has been in place since Israel ended a 22-day military offensive in Gaza on Jan. 18 that was designed to punish the Islamist Hamas group for cross-border rocket attacks from the Palestinian coastal enclave.
Israel has responded to past attacks with air strikes.
An Israeli army spokesman said the rockets were fired from the northern Gaza Strip.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not