Flotilla for Gaza: five French people, including Rima Hassan, refuse expulsion and will be presented to an Israeli judge

Arrested aboard a humanitarian boat that tried to break the blockade of Gaza and denounce the current genocide, six French nationals were placed in detention by the Israeli authorities. One of them agreed to be expelled without delay, while the other five, including MEP Rima Hassan, refused to sign the form imposed by the Israeli apartheid regime. They will be presented to a judge in the coming days. Greta Thunberg, also arrested on the ship, was sent back to France in the process, according to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

But behind these arrests, it is another case that shakes part of the international community: the arrangement of this flotilla took place in international waters. An act clearly contrary to maritime law, which does not seem to disturb the Israeli authorities – nor cause a frank condemnation on the western side.

“International law is indivisible, everyone must respect it, even Israel,” said journalist Jean-Michel Aphatie recently. But to see the passivity of certain chancelleries, we come to doubt that this principle still has a meaning in the face of a strategic ally, responsible for an in progress genocide with impunity. Two weights, two measures which feed anger in a large part of the world, from the Near East to Latin America, passing through Africa and Asia.

In Paris, Emmanuel Macron denounced a humanitarian “scandal” in Gaza and promised that France would protect its nationals. But on the ground, the facts are there: peaceful activists, arrested illegally at sea, risk expulsion or prosecution, while violations of law are commonplace in an accomplice silence. Gatherings took place on Monday evening everywhere in France to support the members of the flotilla. In the street as on the networks, the same question comes back: until when will Israeli illegality be covered?