Boat to Gaza: "The next one is ready to leave soon," assures Rima Hassan back in Paris

The MEP had just disembarked from a bumpy flight from Tel Aviv to Roissy Airport, after three days spent in a detention center in Israel, where she was briefly placed in isolation. "There was a conflict on board, with other passengers […] following a hostile movement of passengers," said an airport source, explaining that Rima Hassan had to be evacuated from the plane by border police.

Rima Hassan did not show up at the arrivals desk at Roissy, where LFI representatives and pro-Palestinian activists were waiting for her, regularly shouting "Free Palestine" and "this is not a war, it's genocide."

Other passengers left the same plane wrapped in the Israeli flag, raising their fists, some in response to the pro-Palestinian activists.

Rima Hassan immediately headed to Place de la République, where she was greeted by a guard of honor formed by some fifteen Insoumis MPs, and Jean-Luc Mélenchon, whom she embraced upon arrival. "She is a woman who taught a lesson in courage. Young women, young girls, all try to be Rima Hassan when you grow up," the Insoumis leader praised.

Alongside another French citizen released the same day, Reva Viard, Rima Hassan returned to her action: "Everyone knows it was symbolic, but it was eminently political," it "aimed first and foremost, of course, to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza," but "above all to denounce the blockade and break it," she insisted.

The two activists were arrested on Monday, along with 10 other people, after Israel seized the sailboat "Madleen" in international waters, about 185 km off the coast of Gaza. "We were kidnapped and brought back by force," Rima Hassan, wearing a keffiyeh and a gray tracksuit left over from her detention, denounced Thursday evening.

These twelve activists and journalists (French, German, Brazilian, Turkish, Swedish, Spanish, and Dutch) left Italy on June 1st aboard the "Madleen" for the Gaza Strip. The operation aimed to "break the Israeli blockade" imposed on the Palestinian territory, ravaged by more than twenty months of war.

On Thursday, the Israeli government announced that it had sent six passengers off what it calls the "selfie yacht." "Goodbye, and don't forget to take a selfie before you leave," the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote in a brief English-language message on its X account.

Four other passengers ( Swedish Greta Thunberg , two French and a Spaniard) returned to their country earlier this week after agreeing to be expelled by Israel.

Two other French nationals, to whom Rima Hassan called on her supporters to give a similar welcome, are also due to return on Friday evening.