Israeli forces have seized an aid ship carrying baby formula to Gaza and arrested the crew. Infants have died of malnutrition in Gaza due to the Israeli siege.
The Handala was attempting to break the Israeli siege when it was boarded by IDF soldiers. “Israeli forces illegally boarded ‘Handala’ in international waters, abducting 21 unarmed civilians,” wrote the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which organized the effort. “Demand your government end its complicity in Israeli war crimes, ensure the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, and call for the immediate release of all crew members.”
Israeli forces illegally boarded ‘Handala’ in international waters, abducting 21 unarmed civilians.
Demand your government end its complicity in Israeli war crimes, ensure the unhindered delivery of humanitarian aid, and call for the immediate release of all crew members. pic.twitter.com/PSGDSPWznG— Freedom Flotilla Coalition (@GazaFFlotilla) July 27, 2025
Videos of the incident show heavily armed Israeli commandos arresting the crew. The legal rights center Adalah reports that the ship was brought to Israel’s Ashdod port. “After 12 hours at sea, following the unlawful interception of the Handala, Israeli authorities confirmed the vessel’s arrival at Ashdod port,” the group said in a statement. “Despite repeated demands, Israeli authorities have refused to allow Adalah’s lawyers access to the detained activists to provide legal consultation.”
It added, “Adalah reiterates that the activists aboard the Handala were part of a peaceful civilian mission to break through Israel’s illegal blockade on Gaza. The vessel was intercepted in international waters and their detention constitutes a clear violation of international law.”
The Handala is the third Freedom Flotilla ship that Israel prevented from reaching Gaza this year. The first vessel was attacked by an Israeli drone, while the IDF boarded and seized the second ship, arresting its crew.
The food aid aboard the Handala is desperately needed in Gaza. Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, the UN aid agency for Palestinians, reports that one in five children in Gaza is now malnourished.
“People in Gaza are neither dead nor alive, they are walking corpses”: a colleague in #Gaza told me this morning.
Meanwhile, according to @UNRWA latest findings: one in every five children is malnourished in Gaza City as cases increase every day.
When child malnutrition…
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) July 24, 2025
Nick Maynard, a British gastrointestinal surgeon who was recently in Gaza, explained that the situation is dire for infants due to the formula shortage. “Yeah, it’s terrible, the malnutrition. On the paediatric and tend to care unit, the lack of feed is dire. On the neonatal, I mean, they’ve been four premature babies who’ve died in recent weeks, purely because of malnutrition,” Maynard explained.
He continued, “Their mothers were too malnourished to breastfeed them, and there was no formula feed to give them. And formula feed is being denied, they’re not getting any formula feed in. Some of my American medical colleagues had brought formula feed into Gaza but it was all confiscated at the border.”
More than 100 Palestinians have starved to death since October 7, 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
