Israel Seizes Activist Ship en Route to Gaza Strip

By JODI RUDOREN

JERUSALEM — The Israeli Navy on Saturday boarded a European ship en route to the Gaza Strip that was trying to break Israel’s maritime blockade against the Hamas-controlled region.

The passengers on the ship, the Estelle, included five members of European parliaments and a former Canadian lawmaker, according to those involved in the campaign.

An Israeli military spokesman said that the ship had been seized without incident and taken to the port of Ashdod, in southern Israel, and that those on board would be turned over to the police.

A statement from an organization affiliated with the mission said that late Saturday morning, “Israeli warships surrounded the Estelle, and the assault on the peaceful ship started.” David Heap, an activist connected to the movement who was attending a conference in Gaza, said he had no information about what had happened aboard the Estelle as it was intercepted.

“The last contact we have from our people on board was that they were going to be boarded,” Mr. Heap said. “We have no confirmation from them of how they are, and we may not for some time hear directly from them.”

Israel imposed a naval blockade on Gaza in early 2009, saying it was needed to prevent the smuggling of weapons to the Palestinian enclave, which is governed by the Islamic militant group Hamas. Israeli officials were also worried about weapons being smuggled to other militant groups.

Mr. Heap said the Estelle was the latest of more than a dozen ships that had tried to break the blockade since 2010, when Israeli commandos killed nine pro-Palestinian activists after encountering resistance during a raid on a six-ship flotilla led by the Turkish vessel the Mavi Marmara.

After the Mavi Marmara raid, a United Nations panel found that Israel’s naval blockade was “legitimate self-defense and that Israel’s decision to intercept the flotilla was indeed legal under international law.” Activists have disputed the panel’s conclusion.

The episode led to some relaxing of the restrictions on imports to Gaza but also caused a deep rift in relations between Israel and Turkey. A spokesman for the Israel Defense Forces, Eytan Buchman, said the Estelle was the third such ship the military had boarded in two years.

Among other things, the Estelle was carrying an anchor for a project called “Gaza’s Ark,” for which activists are building a boat intended to break the limits on exports. “We carry humanitarian supplies,” Jim Manly, the former member of the Canadian Parliament who was on board the ship, said in a statement posted online last week. “Our only ‘dangerous cargo’ is a cargo of hope.”

The Israeli statement said that the boarding “was carried out in accordance with international law” and after repeated attempts to deter the ship (through direct contact with passengers and diplomatic channels) were unsuccessful. Mr. Buchman said offers were made to transfer the cargo on the Estelle to Gaza through Ashdod.

“It should be stressed that any organization or state who wishes to transfer supplies or aid to the Gaza Strip can do so via the existing land crossings and in coordination with Israeli authorities,” the statement said.