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Several boats from a large aid flotilla trying to reach Gaza have been boarded by Israeli authorities – with campaigner Greta Thunberg among those removed.

The Global Sumud Flotilla is made up of more than 40 civilian boats with an estimated 500 people onboard, and is trying to break Israel’s sea blockade.

But the attempt appears to have been thwarted – at least for now – by about 20 Israeli ships.

Israel’s foreign ministry said “several vessels” had been “safely stopped” with passengers being taken to an Israeli port.

“Greta and her friends are safe and healthy,” a spokesperson added.

A livestream showed some of the boats in the flotilla as the incident unfolded
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A livestream showed some of the boats in the flotilla as the incident unfolded

A video showed Thunberg sitting on deck while being handed a water bottle and raincoat.

It’s so far unclear how many boats have been intercepted.

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The flotilla ignored requests to turn back and organisers said the interception was illegal as it happened in “international waters” around 80 miles off the coast.

Greg Stoker, a US veteran who’s involved, said water cannon had been used on some of the boats.

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Gaza-bound flotilla ‘aggressively circled’ by warship

The flotilla, which set off from Barcelona and scheduled to arrive this morning, was flanked by NATO warships for some of the journey.

The attempt has received a lot of attention, with Nelson Mandela’s grandson, a former Barcelona mayor and several European legislators taking part.

Israel said the mission was violating a lawful blockade and is only intended to provoke. It also said it had offered a way to deliver any aid peacefully through safe channels.

Organisers said the night-time interception was the second time the flotilla had been approached on Wednesday, after “warships” earlier encircled two of its boats.

The flotilla set off from Barcelona on 31 August and later stopped in Sicily
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The flotilla set off from Barcelona on 31 August and later stopped in Sicily

Last week, drones also reportedly dropped stun grenades and itching powder on some vessels.

Israel didn’t comment, but has said it will use any means to stop the boats getting to Gaza.

Protests have broken out in Italy and Turkey over the treatment of the flotilla.

Italy’s largest union has called a general strike tomorrow, saying the “attack on civilian vessels carrying Italian citizens represents an extremely serious matter”.

Turkey’s foreign ministry called Israel’s interception an “attack” and “an act of terror” that endangered lives of those on board.

Gaza has been dealing with severe food shortages due to the ongoing war.

Thunberg and activist Saif Abukeshek. Pic: Reuters/Nacho Doce
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Thunberg and activist Saif Abukeshek. Pic: Reuters/Nacho Doce

Agencies such as the UN accused Israel of deliberately slowing the delivery of supplies – something it denies.

However, the aid being carried by the flotilla is said to only be a symbolic amount of food and medicine.

An aid boat carrying Thunberg was also intercepted near Gaza in June, with the Swede deported alongside others.

Israel put in it sea blockade when Hamas took control of the territory in 2007 and there have been several attempts to break it since then.

Some of those involved in the latest campaign have said they will start a hunger strike if they’re detained.

Read more:
Hamas’s first reaction to peace plan is telling
What Sky correspondents make of Trump plan

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Will Trump’s Gaza plan bring peace?

Meanwhile, all eyes remain on Hamas and whether it will accept Donald Trump’s peace plan to end the two-year war, sparked by the group’s terror attack on Israel.

The 20-point proposal was unveiled alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the White House this week.

Hamas said it would study the plan and consult with other factions, but didn’t give an indication of when it would deliver its verdict.

Mr Trump said on Tuesday he would give the group “three or four days”.

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Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

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Four more arrests made over Louvre heist as £76m haul remains missing

Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.

Two men and two women from the Paris region were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.

Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.

They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.

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Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded

The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.

Some of the French Crown Jewels, worth an estimated £76m, were stolen in the audacious October raid.

The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.

The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.

On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.

They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.

Read more:
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Gallery closed as structure in ‘dire state’

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Moment thieves escape Louvre in jewel heist

The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.

Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.

“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.

“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”

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Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump’s peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

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Zelenskyy is racing to beat Donald Trump's peace plan deadline – but what will Russia do?

Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.

It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.

He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”

He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.

Ukraine latest: ‘Delicate’ deal details must be sorted, White House says

By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.

The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.

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In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.

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Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know

“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.

Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.

He set a deadline of Thursday – Thanksgiving – for some sort of agreement on his plan.

We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.

Read more:
US hails ‘tremendous progress’ on Ukraine peace plan

In full: Europe’s 28-point counter proposal

My sense is that Zelenskyy will try to get to Mar-a-Lago as soon as he can. Before Thursday would be a push but would meet Trump’s deadline.

It will then be left for the Russians to state their position on the revised document.

All indications are that they will reject it. But maybe the secret Abu Dhabi talks will yield something.

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Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

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Controversial US and Israeli-backed aid operation the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to close

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution group, has said it will permanently cease operations.

Set up as an alternative to United Nations aid programmes in May, GHF’s executive director John Acree said on Monday that it “succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”.

The foundation had already closed down aid distribution sites after US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan was agreed by Hamas and Israel in October.

The GHF which began operations in Gaza after an Israeli blockade of food deliveries, lasting nearly three months, was criticised by Palestinians, aid workers and health officials who said it forced people to risk their lives to reach the sites.

File pic: Reuters
Image:
File pic: Reuters

According to witnesses and videos posted to social media, Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire at the sites, killing hundreds. The IDF denied this, saying it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.

In July, analysis from Sky News’ Data and Forensics team found that aid distributions by GHF were associated with a significant increase in deaths.

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Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open

MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said in a report in August that the GHF sites “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” and described scenes there as “orchestrated killing”.

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‘We are proud,’ says GHF director

Mr Acree said in a statement through the GHF’s website that “from the outset, GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need” and to hand over a successful aid operation to “the broader international community”.

The GHF would hand over its work to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.

“We are winding down our operations as we have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” Mr Acree said.

File pic: Reuters
Image:
File pic: Reuters

The GHF director added: “At a critical juncture, we are proud to have been the only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza, at scale and without diversion.

“From our very first day of operations, our mission was singular: feed civilians in desperate need. We built a new model that worked, saved lives, and restored dignity to civilians in Gaza.”

According to the GHF website, the group distributed more than three million food boxes, totalling 187 million meals, and supplied 1.1 million packs of Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) for malnourished children.

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Hamas welcomes GHF closure

In a statement, Hamas welcomed the closure of GHF and accused it of being a project that “engineered starvation” in partnership with Israel.

A Hamas spokesperson said: “Since its entry into the Gaza Strip, this foundation was part of the occupation’s security system, which adopted distribution mechanisms entirely disconnected from humanitarian principles, and created dangerous and degrading conditions for the dignity of the starving Palestinian people during their attempts to obtain a piece of bread, resulting in the killing and injury of thousands, through sniper operations and deliberate killing.”

They also called on international legal bodies to hold “this foundation and its officers accountable for their crimes against our people”.

US state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot also said on X that the aid group “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.

“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” he added.

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