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Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who is sailing to Gaza as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, has called out Israel for launching a smear campaign against the flotilla and claiming it was funded by Hamas.

“Israel think they can get away with only recycling their old arguments to lay the groundwork for violence against us and justify their atrocities without addressing the evidence of them committing a genocide and continuously committing war crimes,” the activist wrote on an Instagram post on Tuesday.

The world, Thunberg said, “sees through their lies”. The activist said the flotilla was sailing in international waters to break “Israel’s unlawful and inhumane siege,” adding that any attempt to stop their boats would be “a violation against international humanitarian and maritime law”.

The activist said they were on a humanitarian mission carrying food, baby formula and medical supplies and that they were not “terrorists” who were “running errands for Hamas”. She said any interception of the flotilla and imprisonment of those aboard the boats would be “a direct result of the failures of our governments,” who Thunberg said have a responsibility to uphold human rights and not be complicit in a genocide.

Her post came hours after the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs released documents it claimed pointed to Hamas funding the Global Sumud Flotilla. Foreign Minister Gideon Saar referred to the aid convoy as the “Hamas-Sumud Flotilla” in a post on X and told those aboard to heed an earlier warning by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni asking the flotilla to stop and avoid an escalation amid talks of a US-led peace agreement.

The flotilla’s social media page posted on Tuesday, saying they were 145 nautical miles from Gazan shores and had entered the “high risk zone” where the Israeli navy can intercept their boats and thake crews into custody. The leader of Pakistan’s delegation on the flotilla, former senator Mushtaq Ahmed, also said his boat had entered the high risk zone after his phone was jammed by the Israelis.

Two earlier boats that tried to break the Israeli blockade, the Madleen and the Handala, were boarded by Israeli soldiers and forcibly taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where those onboard were detained. Thunberg was aboard the Madleen and spent time in Israeli custody in June.

Cover photo via Chris Kebbon/Instagram