By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent, Worthy News
JERUSALEM (Worthy News) – The group backing self-declared climate justice warrior Greta Thunberg and other activists in their attempt to reach Gaza by sea has been co-founded by a Hamas operative, British and Israeli sources say.
Zaher Birawi emerged as a key member of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, which organized the journey of a dozen activists on board the Gaza aid vessel Madleen.
Birawi, a Palestinian-British journalist, reportedly describes himself as a Coalition founding member.
Those on board tried to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip until their boat was intercepted early Monday by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), who detained the 12 activists.
Birawi attended the launch of the Madleen in Sicily, Italy, and broadcast the event live online, Worthy News monitored.
The journalist has also been photographed with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed by an airstrike on Gaza in July 2024, reported British newspaper The Telegraph.
Birawi denies any connection to illegal acts within the scope of terror-linked crimes. In 2021, he won a legal case against a financial database that he said incorrectly placed him on a terrorism list.
NO LEGAL SENTENCE
“There has never been any legal sentence passed against me by any official authority in any state anywhere in the world, and…never have I been found to have been involved in any illegal acts which could be deemed within the scope of terrorism crimes,” Birawi reportedly said at the time.
However, both the Israeli and British parliaments have previously named Birawi for alleged Hamas ties, reported The Telegraph newspaper.
“He is listed as a trustee of a UK-registered charity, Education Aid for Palestinians, and publicly available video shows him hosting a 2019 event in London titled Understanding Hamas,” British Labour legislator Christian Wakeford told the House of Commons in October 2023.
In 2013, Israel designated Birawi as a Hamas operative in Europe, and he is also the chairman of the EuroPal Forum, which was designated as a terror organization by Israel in 2021.
The revelations apparently linking the self-declared co-founder of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition to Hamas underscored Israel’s concerns about the group.
Following Monday’s detention, eight of the 12 activists refused to sign deportation papers and were detained pending a court hearing.
Represented by lawyers, they argued they were illegally detained in international waters.
‘BLOCKADE NECESSARY’
Israel says a naval blockade is necessary to prevent Hamas from smuggling weapons into the coastal enclave.
The Israeli military said its naval forces had “diverted” the Madleen at sea within what it described as “the blockade-enforcement zone, in accordance with international law.”
The military added in a statement that the flotilla members had “repeatedly refused Israel’s offer to offload their cargo and pass it into the Gaza Strip through operational land crossings, without breaching the blockade.”
Thunberg and three others signed the documents and were on a flight out of Israel.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry shared a photo purportedly showing the disgruntled 22-year-old sitting on board the plane moments before the flight departed Israel’s Ben Gurion airport.
She flew Greta to France alongside French activists before heading home to her native Sweden, despite publicly declaring opposition to air travel.
“What would I stay in an Israeli prison? I do more good outside of Israel than if I am forced to stay here for a few weeks,” she said.
NO TO FOOTAGE
Before her deportation, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said he’d instructed IDF officials to show the activists the complete, unedited footage of the October 7, 2023, attacks as recorded by Hamas body cameras.
“It is appropriate that the anti-Semitic Greta [Thunberg] and her fellow Hamas supporters see exactly who the Hamas terrorist organization they came to support and for whom they work is, what atrocities they committed against women, the elderly, and children, and against whom Israel is fighting to defend itself,” he stressed.
Later, he told reporters: “Greta and her flotilla companions were taken into a room upon their arrival to the screening of the horror film of the October 7 massacre… when they saw what it was about, they refused to continue watching.”
The minister said, “The anti-Semitic flotilla members are turning a blind eye to the truth and have proven once again that they prefer the murderers to the murdered and continue to ignore the atrocities committed by Hamas against Jewish and Israeli women, adults, and children.”
Some 1,200 Jews were killed and about 251 abducted by Hamas, which sparked Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Hamas-controlled authorities say Israel’s military has since killed more than 54,000 people without differentiating between combatants and civilians.
Israel claims some 20,000 Hamas fighters are among those killed.
Copyright 1999-2026 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
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