vessels

Two South Korean activists returned home Friday after being released by Israeli forces that had captured them aboard aid vessels bound for the Gaza Strip.

Kim Ah-hyun was aboard an aid vessel seized by Israeli forces in waters off the Gaza Strip, while Kim Dong-hyeon’s ship was intercepted near Cyprus — both earlier this week.

They were released Wednesday and flew home together, arriving at Incheon International Airport, west of Seoul, at 6:24 a.m.

“Many people are dying not only from bombings, but also from starvation,” Kim Ah-hyun told reporters at the airport. “Because there are people there, I thought that I had to attempt the voyage again, no matter how dangerous the situation in the Middle East was.”

The activist had earlier attempted to enter the territory via an aid flotilla in October without authorization. She had been detained by Israeli forces during her first attempt and was later released.

Before her latest attempt, the South Korean government had revoked her passport.

The activist claimed she had been assaulted by Israeli forces in the face after her latest capture and that she couldn’t hear properly in her left ear.

Kim Dong-hyeon, the other activist, said Israeli forces had “tortured” the activists, claiming they had suffered “unendurable violence.”

Israel has faced criticism following the release of images of captured activists kneeling on the ground with their hands bound.

On Wednesday, President Lee Jae Myung criticized Israel’s seizure of the vessels, accusing the country of violating international rules as the ships were not in Israel’s territorial waters when they were seized.

Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.

May 4 (UPI) — An oil tanker was struck late Sunday near the Strait of Hormuz, the second attack on a vessel in the Persian Gulf in about eight hours.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said in a statement that it received a report of a tanker being hit by unknown projectiles as the vessel was about 78 nautical miles north of Fujairah, United Arab Emirates, near the northern tip of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula by the Strait of Hormuz.

The attack occurred at about 11:40 p.m. local time, it said, adding that all crew were safe and there was no environmental impact from the strike.

The tanker was not identified.

The oil tanker was struck a little more than eight hours after a bulk carrier was attacked by “multiple small craft” in the same region.

The UKMTO said the unidentified bulk carrier was attacked Sunday afternoon about 11 nautical miles west of Sirik, Iran. All crew were reported safe.

The agency is advising vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz with caution.

The maritime security threat level in the strait remains critical as the United States is enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports in response to Iran restricting which vessels can transit the strait.

The attacks come as U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday vowed to “free” cargo ships trapped in the Persian Gulf since the U.S.-Israel war against Iran began on Feb. 28.

In his Truth Social post, Trump said Project Freedom would begin Monday with the goal of helping ships sailing under neutral flags navigate the strait. Few specifics on how the operation will work were given.

More than two dozen vessels have reportedly been attacked in the strait since the war began.

Israel’s military reportedly seized 22 vessels sailing among the Global Sumud Flotilla.

More than ‌160 activists on board aid ships forming a flotilla bound for Gaza have been taken to the Greek ⁠island of Crete ⁠after Israeli forces seized their vessels in international waters near Greece earlier this week, Freedom Flotilla organisers have said.

The organisers told the Reuters news agency on Friday that 168 members of the flotilla crew had been taken to Crete while two activists remained with Israeli authorities.

According to the group’s tracker, 22 boats have been intercepted so far by Israel, while 47 others are still sailing.

On Wednesday, Israeli military forces intercepted the boats travelling with the Global Sumud Flotilla from Barcelona in Spain, using drones, communications jamming technology, and armed raiding parties to halt the humanitarian fleet in the middle of the Mediterranean as it headed to Gaza, according to organisers and Israeli media.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said the activists on the intercepted boats would be taken to Greece.

On Friday, an Israeli army ship transferred 168 members of the flotilla crew to Greek boats, which then took them to Crete, where buses and an ambulance car waited for them, organisers said and Reuters footage showed.

A source who asked not to be identified also told Reuters that the remaining 47 boats at sea were still sailing off southern Crete and planned to anchor there at some point before continuing onwards to Gaza.

Each ship is carrying about a tonne of food, medical supplies and other equipment, the source added.

‘A straight-up attack’

In an interview with Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Gur Tsabar, a spokesperson for the Global Sumud Flotilla, described Israel’s boarding of its vessels as “a straight-up attack on unarmed civilian boats in international waters”.

“This is illegal under international law. Israel has no jurisdiction in these waters. Boarding these boats amounts to illegal detention, potentially kidnapping on the high seas,” Tsabar added.

Officials around the globe have condemned the interception of the boats bound for Gaza as a violation of international law, with Turkiye calling it an “act of piracy”.

“By targeting the Global Sumud Flotilla, whose mission is to draw attention to the humanitarian catastrophe faced by the innocent people of Gaza, Israel has also violated humanitarian principles and international law,” Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

Spain called the interception “illegal”, while Germany and Italy expressed “great concern” and called for the release of detainees.

But in a statement on Thursday, the US Department of State threatened “to impose consequences” against those who support the flotilla, which it cast as “pro-Hamas”.

Pro-Palestinian activists say Israel and the United States wrongly conflate their advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for Hamas fighters.

Last October, Israel’s military intercepted about 40 boats from the first Global Sumud Flotilla as they tried to carry aid to besieged Gaza, arresting more than 450 participants, including the grandson of South African leader Nelson Mandela, Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg and Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan.

Detained and taken to Israel, several of the flotilla activists claimed they were subjected to physical and psychological abuse while in Israeli custody.

Israel later expelled the arrested crew members and activists.

The killings mark the fourth US deadly strike in the past four days on vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean.

The US military has killed four more people in its fourth deadly attack on vessels in the eastern Pacific Ocean over the past four days.

US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) announced the attack in a social media post on Tuesday, alongside a video that showed a stationary boat with outboard engines being hit by a missile and exploding into a huge ball of flames.

SOUTHCOM, which is responsible for US military operations in Latin America and the Caribbean, claimed that the four people killed were “narco-terrorists”, but provided no evidence to support its claims.

Justification for the lethal attack, according to SOUTHCOM, was due to intelligence – details of which were not provided – that confirmed that “the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the eastern Pacific and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations”.

The latest killing of people on board vessels in international waters in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean brings the overall death toll to at least 175 since early September, when US President Donald Trump ordered the attacks to stop what the White House claims are Latin American cartels transporting drugs to the US.

Tuesday’s killings came after two people were killed in a US strike on Monday, and five people were killed in two separate strikes on Saturday, also in the eastern Pacific.

The Associated Press news agency reported that the US coastguard has suspended a search for one survivor from the two attacks reported on Saturday.

International legal experts and rights groups say the US military campaign amounts to “extrajudicial killings” in international waters and that the attacks have targeted civilian fishing boats.

Legal experts have said that if some vessels were involved in drug trafficking, those on board should face the law, rather than deadly attacks.

Critics have also questioned the effectiveness of the US military operation in part because the fentanyl behind many fatal overdoses in the US, which Trump has used to justify his campaign, is typically trafficked to the US over land from Mexico, where it is produced with chemicals imported from China and India.