A board listing arriving flights at Roissy-Charles de Gaulle Airport north-east of Paris on June 10, 2025, as Greta Thunberg left Israel on a flight to Sweden via France, after being detained along with other activists.
Photo: Hugo Mathy / AFP
Officials on board the so-called ‘freedom flotilla’ must now be questioned about potential ties to Tehran's proxies.
Greta Thunberg’s ‘freedom flotilla’—which last week helped illegal migrants get to Europe, and has since failed in its task of distributing a measly amount of food among Gazans—is backed by a man accused of being a “Hamas operative.”
Zaher Birawi, who reportedly has links to the terrorist organisation, called himself a “founding member” of the Freedom Flotilla International Coalition, which arranged the Madleen’s voyage, The Daily Telegraphrevealed on Monday.
He was photographed in 2012 with former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, killed in July last year. Labour MP Christian Wakeford also used parliamentary privilege in 2023 to name Birawi as an Israeli-designated Hamas operative, and said a “publicly available video shows him hosting a 2019 event in London titled ‘Understanding Hamas.’”
This report has prompted a significant response across Europe. A Spanish campaign group against antisemitism (Acción y Comunicación sobre Oriente Medio) said the news revealed that Thunberg’s was “not a grassroots humanitarian mission.”
Madleen is a calculated influence operation with a Hamas agenda.
French journalist Jean-Sébastien Ferjou also described the mission as “a Hamas influence operation supported by their proxies and/or useful idiots on the European left.”
Emmanuel Razavi, another French writer, added that officials on board the flotilla’—including MEP Rima Hassan of the far-left La France Insoumise party—must now be questioned about their potential “ties to Tehran’s proxies.”
The Telegraphapproached Birawi for comment and noted that he denies being involved in “any illegal acts within the scope of terrorism crimes.”
Thunberg also on Tuesday accused Israel of “kidnapping” the group “in international waters” before being deported.
Michael Curzon is a news writer for europeanconservative.com based in England’s Midlands. He is also Editor of Bournbrook Magazine, which he founded in 2019, and previously wrote for London’s Express Online. His Twitter handle is @MichaelCurzon_.
