World Bulletin / News Desk

Hamas officials criticized " international indifference" to Israel's seizure of a civilian ship carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza and detaine human right activists, officials said Wednesday.

Israeli warships surrounded and boarded on Tuesday the Free Gaza Movement boat, the Spirit of Humanity, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Congresswoman Cynthia, raided the vessel in Gazan waters.

"The abduction of a ship carrying solidarity activists from 22 countries indicates that Israel is going too far with its criminal acts, and widening its range of aggression," Maan news agency quoted Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum as saying.

Barhoum was quoted as saying that the Gaza Strip badly needed the efforts of all international activists and human rights groups to help women, children, the elderly as well as victims of the recent Israeli military offensive.

But activists vowed again to continue to defy an Israeli navy blockade around Gaza, a day after Israel seized their boat and detained 21 people taking aid to the territory.

The group would continue regardless of interceptions, said spokeswoman Greta Berlin.

"We are definitely going to go (back) even if we have to paddle across," she told journalists in Cyprus.

Vowing to struggle

Activists said they would continue to try to get aid directly to Gaza for as long as Israeli restrictions were in place. Israel says it is allowing aid to get through.

The International Committee of the Red Cross this week said stringent restrictions imposed by Israel are crippling reconstruction efforts.

"It is absolutely appalling how our small ships and a rag-tag band of activists has become the international conscience of what is happening there," said activist Ramzi Kyzia. "We are going to go, again and again."

According to an International Committee of the Red Cross report, the Palestinians living in Gaza are "trapped in despair." Thousands of Gazans whose homes were destroyed earlier during Israel's December/January offensive are still without shelter despite pledges of almost $4.5 billion in aid. Israel refuses to allow cement and other building material into the Gaza Strip. The report also notes that hospitals are struggling to meet the needs of their patients due to Israel's disruption of medical supplies.

Maguire, winner of a Noble Peace Prize for her work in Northern Ireland, also said that "Our mission is a gesture to the people of Gaza that we stand by them and that they are not alone."

Unclear fate of boat activists

Greta Berlin voiced outrage at what she termed Israel's theft of the boat and kidnapping of its passengers.

"The last we heard from them was 'they are surrounding us, they are surrounding us', and then the phone line went dead," she said.

Meanwhile, Bahrain's foreign Minister has been also declared that five of the boat activists were from Al Bahrainian Eslah Charitable Society and assigned to follow up the case of Three females and two males which was detained by Israeli gunboats, Khaleej Times said.

Bahrain Prime Minister Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa was quoted as saying that "such attacks reiterated Israel's aggressive policies against the Palestinians and those who extend them assistance."

"This is an outrageous violation of international law against us. Our boat was not in Israeli waters, and we were on a human rights mission to the Gaza Strip," said McKinney.

"President Obama just told Israel to let in humanitarian and reconstruction supplies, and that's exactly what we tried to do. We're asking the international community to demand our release so we can resume our journey."

"Just before being kidnapped by Israel, Huwaida Arraf, Free Gaza Movement chairperson and delegation co-coordinator on this voyage, stated that: "No one could possibly believe that our small boat constitutes any sort of threat to Israel. We carry medical and reconstruction supplies, and children's toys."

"Our boat was searched and received a security clearance by Cypriot Port Authorities before we departed, and at no time did we ever approach Israeli waters."

No shots were fired during the boarding of the boat," the Israeli military said in a statement. A police source claimed the boat crew and the activists would likely be deported.

Arraf continued, "Israel's deliberate and premeditated attack on our unarmed boat is a clear violation of international law and we demand our immediate and unconditional release."

Call for international intervention

Tel Aviv claims the boat was trying to break Israel's two-year siege on Gaza.

"My wife and I are very concerned about her safety," McKinney 's father told Press TV in a phone call.

Bill McKinney said that the US government should support Cynthia's message and added, "Her major concern is human."

Green Party leaders have called on the White House and the US State Department to intervene and demand the immediate release of all the activists.

Israel launched on Dec. 27 a massive offensive in Gaza, killing more than 1300 Palestinians, a third of them children, and wounded at least 5300.

Israel targeted hospitals, schools, mosques and government buildings and destroyed infrastructure system in Gaza, lefting Palestinians without electricity, gas and power.

But Israel imposes heavy blockade on entry of infrastracture materials under the pretext of Palestinians can use them as "weapon" materials.

Gazas economy is dependent on the tunnels, increasingly under attack by both Israeli and Egyptian forces. Tens have been killed in the underground system over the past months, and dozens more over the nearly three years of Gaza siege. The industry remains, however, the only growing work opportunity in Gaza.