Second Greek island to protest arrival of Israeli cruise ship currently in Cyprus

A second Greek island is to stage a protest against the planned arrival of an Israeli cruise ship which last week docked in Cyprus after being turned away from Syros.

The ship, the Crown Iris, arrived at the port of Limassol on Wednesday afternoon after its 1,600 passengers had been unable to disembark after hundreds of the island’s residents staged a demonstration at the port.

Since then, the ship has travelled to Israel and was on Saturday in Limassol once more. It is believed that its next destination will be the island of Rhodes on Monday, with people in Rhodes now planning their own protest against the ship’s arrival.

The Rhodes municipal workers association said in a statement that the ship is due to arrive at the port of Rhodes on Monday at around 3.30pm.

“This is the same ship which recently approached Syros, provoking the symbolic protest staged by the islanders against the genocidal policy implemented by the far-right Netanyahu government against the Palestinian people,” the association said.

It added that residents of Syros, alongside visitors, “managed to prevent it from docking, forcing it to turn around to leave, despite a ban on traffic in the port imposed by the port authority”.

With this in mind, it said it calls on its members and supporters to gather in protest at the island’s port at 3pm on Monday.

“The message of our protest is clear: we resist the ongoing murderous policy of the far-right Netanyahu, who was convicted by the international court of justice as a war criminal, and his supporters, while we have nothing against those Israelis or Jewish people who oppose these crimes or do not participate in them,” it said.

The protest in Syros had been organised by an activist group called We Stay Active, which wrote in a social media post that “residents and visitors to the island state that [Israeli Defence Forces] soldiers, settlers, and supporters of the war and the occupation of Palestine are unwanted on their island”.

As the incident unfolded, Israeli newspaper the Times of Israel reported that Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar spoke with his Greek counterpart Giorgos Gerapetritis about the protest in Syros on Tuesday, and “requested intervention”.

Meanwhile, Greek Health Minister Adonis Georgiadis reacted with fury to the protest, describing it as “shameful for Greece”.

“We owe an apology to those friends of Greece who chose to spend their holidays here and were forcibly denied that right by some. This incident must neither harm our relations with [Israel] nor the love of Israeli tourists for Greece,” he said.

He then accused the protesters of antisemitism.

The Crown Iris was used last month to ferry Israeli nationals and non-Israeli Jewish people between Cyprus and Israel after Israel closed its airspace during an 11-day exchange of missile fire with Iran.

The ship made multiple trips between Cyprus and the Israeli port of Ashdod, including transporting 1,500 Jewish citizens of the United States, Canada and Australia to Larnaca on June 18.

They were then transferred to Larnaca airport to continue their journeys to their home countries.

The following week, it set sail from Limassol for Ashdod with around 1,400 Israeli nationals on board as part of the country’s Operation Safe Return – the Israeli government’s plan to coordinate repatriations of its citizens amid the conflict.