Israel, once again, has done what it does best: it has flagrantly broken yet another raft of international laws, this time by “intercepting” the Global Samud Flotilla in international waters and abducting the crews of the flagged vessels that were trying to bring in much needed food and other basic supplies to the starving people of Gaza. The Western media are doing their bit to help (pun unintended) muddy the waters:
“Arrested”, Guardian? Stop pretending that Israel has any kind of legal right to abduct peace activists – either in international waters or in Gaza’s waters.
This was yet another act of piracy by Israel. pic.twitter.com/saE0YYgkKh
— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) October 2, 2025
At least this time, no crew members were killed (thus far).
“We were attacked in international waters. The Israelis behaved like pirates. They steered the ship towards Israel, so we were kidnapped. Later we heard they had murdered 9 civilians on the Mavi Marmara.”
Henning Mankell ( author of Wallander) Gaza Freedom Flotilla 2010 pic.twitter.com/3uMfgJzCmc
— Stevie McGlinchey (@steviemcglinchy) February 4, 2025
Crimes Against 46 Nations
The former British diplomat Craig Murray helpfully lays out how Israel’s latest act of international piracy, including the illegal seizure of boats in international waters and the abduction of their crews, contravenes international law. They are also crimes within the domestic jurisdiction of the 46 sovereign nations represented:
I write as former Head of Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office
and Alternate Head of UK Delegation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Prepcom.
1) The flotilla is on the High Seas and not in Israel’s 12 mile territorial sea. Israel has no jurisdiction.
2) The Israeli maritime blockade has been in place for 17 years and is an intrinsic part of the long term occupation found illegal in the ICJ advisory opinion
3) It is therefore not a short term measure in time of armed conflict as specified in the San Remo manual
4) In any event the San Remo rules explicitly state that humanitarian supplies may not be blockaded
5) The UN Commission of Inquiry has already determined that Israel is committing genocide. The blockade is plainly a part of the machinery of such genocide.
For reasons 1 to 5 the Israeli attack on the flotilla is plainly illegal.
6) On the High Seas, the law applying on each ship is the law of its flag state. An attack by a state military warship on a vessel on the High Seas is an attack on the flag state of the vessel attacked.
7) Acts of illegal possession of vessels or abduction of crew on the High Seas should be pursued by each flag state as crimes within their domestic jurisdiction, not only in international law.
8) So the Metropolitan Police and DPP have an obligation to investigate and act over the abduction of persons from UK flagged vessels on the High Seas.
This applies to each flag state mutatis mutandi.
Below is an infographic showing all the countries represented by the flotilla. Note that it’s not just westerners on the flotilla but also citizens of “Global South” nations who were able to travel on a second passport. Delegations critical to the mission include those with with nationals onboard from Turkey (56), Tunisia (28), Malaysia (27), Algeria (17) Brazil (14), Mexico (7), Morocco (7), South Africa (7) and Palestine.
Israel’s actions have already sparked protests in many of the countries affected, including Italy, Spain, Greece, France, Turkey, Sweden, Belgium, Jordan, Tunisia and Mexico.
In Italy, a country with a pro-Trump, pro-Israel government, the two largest unions have announced a general strike for today (October 3rd), following through on their threat to bring the country and Europe’s economy to a standstill if Israel attacked the Gaza flotilla. The strike will apparently involve all sectors, both public and private.
Most of the governments of the affected countries, whether Western or otherwise, will respond by mouthing empty platitudes while doing next to nothing — or worse, intensifying its support of Tel Aviv. As Murray notes, if the UK’s Labour government does anything in response to the IDF’s criminal abduction of 15 UK citizens, it will be to Israel’s overall benefit
Spain’s Pedro Sánchez has reverted to type in recent days after momentarily shaking the world a couple of weeks ago by pledging his government’s support to the nationwide protests against Israeli participation in the La Vuelta cycling race that ended up bringing the race to a standstill on its final stage. As we noted at the time, Sánchez had little choice in the matter:
[P]ro-Palestine sentiment is strong across a broad cross-section of Spanish society, with 82% qualifying Israel’s acts in Gaza as genocide, according to a recent survey. Plus, Sánchez is facing myriad scandals at home and appears to have decided, wisely, that the Gaza crisis makes for a useful diversionary tactic, especially given the opposition’s unwavering support for Tel Aviv.
In recent days, normality appears to have returned to Spain’s governing coalition. Sánchez not only called on the flotilla not to enter Israel’s designated no-fly waters, noting that the military vessel his government had sent to assist them would not accompany them so close to Gaza’s coastline; he also provided his full backing for Donald Trump and Tony Blair’s neo-colonial project for Gaza.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Israel of “brutality” in boarding the aid flotilla, and has promised to convene an emergency inquiry into Tel Aviv’s latest actions. But rather than taking meaningful action against Israel, as he has been threatening to do for the past two years, he has instead imposed sanctions on… Iran.
Under Erdogan’s decree, Turkiye targets Iran’s nuclear program with asset freezes
——
On 1 October, Turkiye froze the assets of 20 Iranian individuals and 18 entities tied to Tehran’s nuclear program, under a presidential decree signed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Targets… pic.twitter.com/xmjfmyVRhQ
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) October 2, 2025
It’s the same, sad story with the Arab states in the region, especially the monarchies, as well as the BRICS member states, including China. As we reported in June, Beijing, while denouncing Israel’s actions in Gaza, has sought to intensify its trade with the Jewish State in recent months. The same goes for Brazil whose exports almost doubled year over year in July while its president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva used his speech at the UN General Assembly to condemn not only the genocide in Gaza but also the complicity of those who can prevent it.
As the old adage goes, actions ultimately speak leader than louds, especially when it comes to the world’s most televised genocide. In that regard, precious few of the world’s 192 national governments can hold their heads high over their response (or lack thereof) to Israel’s multiplying war crimes.
Many of those that can are in Latin America, including, of course, the US’ axis of evil in the region, Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua, which Washington hopes to regime change in the none too distant future. But they already had strained or non-existent relations with Israel when the genocide began. Cuba has had no formal relations with Israel since 1973. Venezuela cut its ties with Tel Aviv in 2009. Nicaragua did the same in November 2024, but relations between the two countries had already soured long before that.
It’s a very different story with Colombia. For many decades, the Andean nation has been not only the US’ most important strategic (vass)ally in South America but also a key partner for Israel in the region. As the Mexican-Lebanese geopolitical analyst Alfredo Jalife notes, the Israelis control Colombia’s spyware and help train its soldiers and paramilitaries” — a situation that has been going on for decades, as we documented on October 17, 2023, just eight days after Israel’s genocide in Gaza began:
[In the late ’80s], Rafi Eitan, a former Mossad chief who had courted fame for leading the operation to capture Adolf Eichmann,… was hired by the Colombian President Virgilio Barco (1986-90) to help end the guerrilla conflict in the country. His involvement in Colombia’s civil war was kept secret for 36 years, for obvious reasons: one of Eitan’s recommendations, which was enthusiastically embraced by Barco, was to exterminate the political leaders of the Patriotic Union (UP), the left-wing party that emerged from a peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla.
What followed was a brutal years-long assassination campaign that took the lives of 3,122 members of UP, including two presidential candidates, five sitting congressmen, 11 deputies, 109 councilors, several former councilors, 8 current mayors, 8 former mayors and thousands of other activists. According to data presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the total number of victims is more than 6,000, including murders, disappearances, torture, forced displacements and other human rights violations.
Despite concerted pressure and criticism from Israel, Washington (under both Biden and Trump), the Jewish community and the domestic and global media, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro government has not only spoken out against Israel’s naked criminality in Gaza from the very start; it has consistently turned those words into actions. And in so doing, it has put much of the rest of the world to shame.
The Petro government severed formal ties with Israel in May 2024. It then imposed a ban on the export of Colombian coal to Israel in late August of the same year as well as on the purchase of Israeli weapons, becoming one of the first, if not the first, country in the world to impose unilateral sanctions on Israel since the genocide began.
Enforcing the ban on Colombian exports of coal to Israel was hampered by the fact that two global mining companies — Swiss-based Glencore and Birmingham, Alabama-based Drummond — refused to comply. Both companies featured prominently on the list compiled by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese of the global businesses facilitating Israel’s genocide.
Now, following Israel’s abduction of GSF delegates, including two Colombians, the Petro government has tightened its economic sanctions on Israel by suspending Colombia’s 2006 free trade agreement with Israel. It has also ordered the immediate expulsion of Israel’s diplomatic mission from Bogota.
“The head of state warned that this constitutes yet another international crime committed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government,” Petro’s office said in a statement. “In light of this situation, decisions were made to protect all Colombian citizens, strengthen national sovereignty, and condemn violations of human rights.”
**POST-ABDUCTION of #GSF delegates**:
🇨🇴 President @petrogustavo announces expulsion of Israeli diplomats + suspension of Free Trade Agreement with Israel.
🇿🇦 President @CyrilRamaphosa requests immediate release of 100s abducted.
And the rest of the world: what are they doing?
— Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt (@FranceskAlbs) October 2, 2025
This announcement of additional measures against Israel comes just days after Petro delivered a scathing critique of the actions of the Netenyahu regime and the Trump administration in his last address to the UN General Assembly. A few choice cuts:
On the parallels between the genocide in Gaza and the recent developments in the Caribbean: “Those of who don’t have bombs or big budgets are not listened to here. But now, four years [after my first speech here], the horrific situation in Palestine has led me to believe that the same thing could happen in Colombian’s Caribbean region, where 17 unarmed young people were killed by missiles in the open seas under the pretext of stopping drug trafficking… Perhaps a Global Stone Age has descended on mankind.”
On Trump’s role in Gaza: “Trump is an accomplice to genocide. This forum is a mute witness to a genocide.”
On the global scale of today’s polycrisis: Now we confront a different situation, one that is perhaps more global. Barbarism todays falls on the planet, on all humanity. The missiles on 17 unarmed young men, including perhaps Colombians, in the waters of the Caribbean Sea.The persecution, imprisonment, chaining and expulsion of millions of migrants. The missiles that fall on the 70,000 people in Gaza and kill them.”
On the real reasons behind Trump’s offensive in the Caribbean: They need violence to dominate Colombia and Latin America. They need to destroy dialogue and impose themselves by launching killer missiles on poor youth in the Caribbean. The anti-drug policy is not to stop the cocaine that arrives in the United States but to dominate the peoples of the South in general.”
