Greta Thunberg lands in Greece after Israel deportation
Activist Greta Thunberg has landed in Athens along with 160 other nationals from 16 European countries expelled to Greece by Israel for taking part in a Gaza aid flotilla.
The 22-year-old Swedish climate campaigner was among hundreds of people who were on the 45-vessel flotilla that unsuccessfully tried to break through an Israeli blockade to deliver aid to Gaza.
At Athens International Airport, activists unfurled a huge Palestinian flag in the arrivals hall and chanted “Freedom for Palestine” and “Long live the flotilla!” to welcome Thunberg and the other activists back to Europe.
On arrival at the airport, Thunberg called the Global Sumud Flotilla “the biggest ever attempt to break Israel’s illegal and inhumane siege by sea”.
“That this mission has to exist is a shame,” she added, urging the world to prevent Israel’s “genocide” of the Palestinians. “We are not even seeing the bare minimum from our governments,” said Thunberg.
Top Vatican diplomat condemns Gaza ‘carnage’
The Vatican’s secretary of state, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, has condemned the “carnage” in Gaza and said it’s “unacceptable” to dismiss the death toll there as “collateral damage”.
Parolin said the war “has brought about disastrous and inhuman consequences”, adding he’s struck by the daily death toll among the Palestinian population, including “so many children whose only fault seems to be having been born there”.
“We risk becoming desensitised to this carnage,” Parolin said in the interview published in Italian and English. “It is unacceptable and unjustifiable to reduce human beings to mere ‘collateral damage’.”
Parolin said it’s “clear that the international community is, unfortunately, powerless and that the countries truly capable of exerting influence have so far failed to act to stop the ongoing massacre”.
“It’s not enough to say that what is happening is unacceptable and then continue to allow it to happen.”
