DR MARGARET CONNOLLY, the sister of President Catherine Connolly, has said she and her fellow participants on the Global Sumud Flotilla did not sleep last night after some of the boats in the convoy were intercepted by Israeli forces off the coast of Greece.

Flotilla organisers said 211 people were taken from the boats overnight and that seven of those are Irish citizens. 

Connolly, a GP based in Co Sligo, spoke from her boat today to the Sligo Weekender newspaper after staying up all night travelling to the Crete coast.

Boats within the Global Sumud Flotilla, which is attempting to bring humanitarian aid to the war-ravaged and besieged Gaza Strip in Palestine, were intercepted around Connolly last night.

She said over the phone today that she believed another potential interception was about to happen so she said that the crew had to clear the deck to be prepared. This turned out to be a false alarm.

“I was strangely calm”, she said. “I was just making sure I had all the drugs together in case we did have to go”, as she is a medic.

She said that the others in the boat beside her saw “huge figures coming towards them with helmets and they definitely had weapons. A robocop kind of look”.

“It was dark – we were sitting up on the deck – I don’t even want to repeat it to be honest”.

She said that her boat is now currently off the coast of Crete in Greece and that they are “hopefully safe” for now.

She details how last night the IDF intercepted some of the other boats around her, when they were about 75 miles off the eastern coast of Crete.

“This is absolutely illegal – against the law – against everything. I didn’t watch it because we saw the big ship coming towards us and then these two little really fast motorboats called RIBs.

“I didn’t see it because I had to get off the deck. I’m a medic so I had to get all the drugs together in case we did have to go”.

She went down off the deck and said she layered up into trousers too as she expected to be taken away as she also collected all of their passports together.

“By that stage, when I had gotten all the supplies, it was all over, in maybe 3 or 4 minutes.”

However, she said that the boat parallel to her was apprehended as the two Israeli RIBs (rigid inflatable boats) intercepted it.

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Margaret Connolly during IOF interception of the surrounding flotilla boats. Currently this boat with 3 Irish people is sailing to Greece

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She said that these RIBs suddenly disappeared and her own boat “took off” to get away from any potential interception. She said that at this stage communication was down for their crew so they wanted to retreat back in order to stay safe.

“We travelled 75 miles at that time and the sunrise was coming up as we saw the Crete shoreline this morning”.

“We all stayed up all night, none of us slept”.

She said it was a little scary but she tried to remain calm and stick to their training protocols.

Dr Connolly says that she and the crew on her boat are going to anchor at Crete for the next few days as there’s bad weather expected and it wouldn’t be safe to cross the sea.

They intend to embark on their journey to Gaza again in a few days’ time.

She wants to re-iterate that she was not kidnapped but that the boats beside her were apprehended.

Last night, she said that there were drones circling the flotilla, and that the Israelis targeted one boat beside her as they had shot up a flare.

She said that she was on the deck initially because herself and Louise McCormack were watching a little sick baby bird that had flown onto their boat.

She was thinking “of all the little babies and how they have no mother or father that are surviving”.

She referenced the term, WCNSF, which stands for Wounded Child, No Surviving Family. This term is used by medics and health organisations like Doctors Without Borders (MSF), primarily in the Gaza Strip.

“Imagine the Israelis coming at us – I think about 600–800 miles away from Gaza. We’re in European waters – we’re Irish citizens and they [the Israelis] think that they can just do what they want”.

“Imagine that if they do that to us – what they do to the Palestinian children”.

She continued, “I am raging at our government tolerating this genocide. I want Israel expelled from the UN.

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“I want the Occupied Territories Bill to be enacted and most of all we call on the Irish people to support no military pass over our land or through Shannon.”

She is vehement in her calls.

“We have to stop it. The government has the backing of the Irish people to say a genocide has to stop. Forget about jobs in American companies – I know we need our jobs – but we don’t need to murder people to keep our jobs”.

Although she says she and the crew had a rough night, “it is nothing, nothing compared to what they do to the Palestinians – where no one is allowed in to see what the Israeli forces are doing – it is absolutely disgusting – it’s insane”.

She and the crew on her boat, named Blue Toys, intend to embark on their journey to Gaza in a few days’ time, when the weather conditions are safe to go.

President Connolly briefly commented on the detention of the flotilla participants at the end of a speech about emigration that she gave today at the Global Irish Civic Forum, a government initiative aimed at connecting Ireland with the Irish diaspora.

“I couldn’t leave the stage without saying I’m very conscious of the arrests being made on the flotilla,” she said. 

“I’ll leave my comments at that – the arrests that have been made of Irish citizens among a number of other citizens, and I say that in the context of a speech where most of our people left on ships in very bad conditions and now we’re in a situation where a flotilla of solidarity is in difficulty.”

The Department of Foreign Affairs said earlier today its officials are in contact with relevant embassies and will provide support for those Irish citizens who have been detained. 

More than 80 vessels and 1,000 participants from over 100 countries are expected to take part in the flotilla in an effort to reach the Palestinian people there, who have been subjected to a genocidal war and siege by Israel. 

Israel has again accused the flotilla participants of being supported by the Palestinian armed group Hamas. 

The Israeli foreign ministry also claimed today that it had “flooded” Gaza with aid since a nominal ceasefire came into effect last year. 

According to the World Food Programme, at least 1.6 million people (77% of the population) in Gaza are facing high levels of acute food insecurity.

“This includes over 100,000 children and 37,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women projected to suffer acute malnutrition through to April 2026,” the UN organisation says.

With reporting from David Mac Redmond