Israeli military halts most of Gaza aid flotilla near Cyprus

The Israeli military has stopped most boats in an international Gaza aid flotilla, Israeli public broadcaster Kan reported on Tuesday.

The Israeli Navy continued action overnight against the Global Sumud Flotilla and took control of more than half of a total of 57 boats, the broadcaster reported. Around 250 activists have so far been arrested in the operation west of Cyprus.

The flotilla's organizers spoke of an "abduction" of the activists and said that 10 boats were still heading towards the Gaza Strip. More than 40 others have been stopped since Monday.

The Israeli operation against the flotilla 250 nautical miles from Gaza was "another illegal high seas aggression," the organization said in a statement on its website. The aim of the Gaza Sumud Flotilla was "to establish a humanitarian corridor and break Israel's illegal siege of Gaza."

The Israeli Foreign Ministry, by contrast, described it as a provocation and said that no humanitarian aid supplies had so far been found on the boats.

Israeli news portal ynet reported that the activists were to be taken after their arrest to a navy ship with a "floating prison" on board. From there, they were to be transferred to the Israeli port city of Ashdod. International activists on previous flotillas have been deported back to their home countries.

The foreign ministers of Jordan, Indonesia, Spain, Pakistan, Brazil, Turkey, Bangladesh, Colombia, Libya and the Maldives condemned in a joint statement "the renewed Israeli assaults against the Global Sumud Flotilla, a peaceful civilian humanitarian initiative aimed at drawing international attention to the catastrophic humanitarian suffering of the Palestinian people."