Maersk’s decision follows over a year of pressure by the “Mask off Maersk” campaign, led by the Palestinian Youth Movement
Danish shipping giant Maersk has become the first global shipping company to divest from companies in Israeli settlements following a concerted pressure campaign by pro-Palestine activists across the globe. The company has stated that it will cut ties with companies linked to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
This decision follows over a year of pressure by the “Mask off Maersk” campaign, led by the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), an international Palestinian diaspora organization. Since launching the campaign in the summer of 2024, the PYM has aimed to shed light on Maersk’s role in supplying Israel with military shipments as it continues its genocide in Gaza. In January of 2025, PYM released a report detailing Maersk’s role in facilitating exports from Israeli settlements.
PYM noted in a statement that “this marks the first time in history that a global shipping company has committed to full compliance with the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) database,” which documents “all business enterprises involved in certain specified activities related to the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” according to the OHCHR.
Divestment from Israeli settlements has been a popular demand of the pro-Palestine movement for decades. “Maersk’s decision proves that divestment from occupation is not only possible – it’s necessary,” said Aisha Nizar of the Palestinian Youth Movement. “This sends a clear message to the global shipping industry: compliance with international law and basic human rights is not optional. Doing business with Israel’s illegal settlements is no longer viable, and the world is watching to see who follows next.”
“Still, as Israel escalates its military aggression across the region, Maersk continues to profit from the genocide of our people – regularly shipping F-35 components used to bomb and massacre Palestinians,” Aisha added. “The Mask Off Maersk campaign is far from over. We will continue to build pressure and mobilize people power until Maersk cuts all ties to genocide and ends the transport of weapons and weapons components to Israel.”
Since its launch, the “Mask Off Maersk” campaign has spread across the globe, with Palestine solidarity protests in Morocco delaying a Maersk ship reportedly bound for Israel back in April. In February, activists shut down Maersk headquarters in Copenhagen through a demonstration of nearly 1,000 people. Last fall, the Spanish government decided to block Maersk ships bound to Israel following pressure from activists.
Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg speaks surrounded by other participants in the latest Freedom Flotilla Coalition effort to deliver shipborne aid to Gaza, during a June 1, 2025 press conference in Catania, Italy. (Photo: Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)
“No matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” said climate activist Greta Thunberg, who is aboard the Madleen.
A dozen Palestine defenders including climate campaigner Greta Thunberg and a French lawmaker set sail from Sicily on Sunday aboard a boat carrying humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza, many of whom are starving amid Israel’s ongoing U.S.-backed genocidal assault and siege and decadeslong naval blockade of the coastal enclave.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) said it launched the sailboat Madleen—named after Gaza’s first and only known fisherwoman—from Catania, Italy at 4:00 pm local time Sunday “in direct defiance of Israel’s illegal and genocidal blockade.”
“Madleen symbolizes the unyielding spirit of Palestinian resilience and the growing global resistance to Israel’s use of collective punishment and deliberate starvation policies,” FFC said in a statement Sunday. “The ship is carrying urgently needed supplies for the people of Gaza, including baby formula, flour, rice, diapers, women’s sanitary products, water desalination kits, medical supplies, crutches, and children’s prosthetics.”
The international volunteers aboard Madleen include Thunberg, French Member of European Parliament Rima Hassan, German refugee advocate and FFC steering committee member Yasemin Acar, Brazilian FFC steering committee member Thiago Ávila, Al Jazeera reporter Omar Fayad, French doctor Baptiste Andre, French journalist Yanis M’Hamdi, Turkish engineer Şuayb Ordu, and crew members Mark Van Rennes, Reva Seifert Viard, Pascal Maurieras, and Sergio Toribio.
“I am aboard Madleen because silence is not neutrality—it is complicity,” said Hassan, who is banned from entering Israel due to her outspoken support for Palestinian rights. “The Palestinian people in Gaza are being starved and slaughtered, and the world watches. This ship is not just carrying aid, it is carrying a demand: End the blockade. End the genocide.”
Thunberg said that “we are seeing a systematic starvation of 2 million people. The world cannot be silent bystanders, Every single one of us has a moral obligation to do everything we can to fight for a free Palestine.”
The Madleen‘s launch came a month after the Conscience, another FCC aid vessel traveling in international waters off Malta, was attacked twice, presumably by Israeli forces. No one was harmed in what FFC said was a drone strike on the ship. However, the activists were forced to abort their humanitarian mission. Israel has not commented on the incident.
Madleen also set sail nearly 15 years to the day after Israeli forces raided a Gaza Freedom Flotilla convoy carrying humanitarian aid to the besieged people of Gaza. The attack—which also came in international waters—left nine people including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan dead.
FFC said Sunday that the “unarmed and nonviolent” mission “poses no threat” and “sails in full accordance with international law. Any attack or interference will be a deliberate, unlawful assault on civilians.”
Those aboard the Madleen said they were aware of the dangers they faced. Israel has killed numerous Western activists and journalists who document its human rights violations over the years, and just last month Israeli troops opened fire on a group of international diplomats visiting the illegally occupied West Bank two days after three involved countries issued an ultimatum to stop annihilating Gaza.
“We are doing this because, no matter what odds we are against, we have to keep trying,” a tearful Thunberg said during a Sunday press conference. “Because the moment we stop trying is when we lose our humanity.”
“And no matter how dangerous this mission is, it’s nowhere near as dangerous as the silence of the entire world in the face of the live-streamed genocide,” she added.
Activist Greta Thunberg says silence is more dangerous than sailing to Gaza, as she boarded a vessel that will try to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
The Gaza Freedom Flotilla had to abandon its last attempt on May 2 when it was bombed. pic.twitter.com/ieecZ8ps0E
Some Israelis and their supporters took to social media to wish harm upon the activists. In the United States, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) alluded to past Israeli attacks on Gaza aid flotillas in a social media post saying, “Hope Greta and her friends can swim!”
Israel strongly refutes allegations that it is committing genocide in Gaza. South Africa has filed, and dozens of nations support, a genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
The International Criminal Court, also located in the Dutch city, has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, his former defense minister, for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, including extermination and starvation as a weapon of war, in Gaza.
Officials in Gaza say that more than 192,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured since Israel launched its assault and siege following the Hamas-led attack of October 7, 2023, a figure that includes at least 14,000 people who are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath rubble and hundreds of mostly children who have died from acute malnutrition and lack of medical care.
Around 2 million Gazans have also been forcibly displaced, often multiple times, amid Israel’s campaign to starve, conquer, indefinitely occupy, ethnically cleanse, and possibly recolonize the coastal strip.
Each side accuses the other of thwarting cease-fire efforts. On Saturday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff rejected what he called Hamas’ “totally unacceptable” proposal for a truce in which 10 living and 18 dead Israeli hostages would be exchanged for an unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Former Israeli peace negotiator Daniel Levy toldDemocracy Now! on Monday that a cease-fire proposal mediated by Witkoff is “a bad deal for the Palestinians that will allow Israel to continue its ethnic cleansing of Gaza” and “walks back the commitment for a permanent cease-fire, Israeli withdrawal, and allowing in of humanitarian aid.”
The Israeli settlement of Bruchin, centre, on top of a hill and adjacent to the West Bank village of Bruqin. Photograph: Nasser Nasser/AP
Defence minister says move ‘prevents establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel’
Israel has said it will establish 22 new settlements in the occupied West Bank, including the legalisation of outposts already built without government authorisation, after a security cabinet vote held in secret last week.
Israel occupied the West Bank, capturing it from Jordan, in the six-day war of 1967. Since then, successive governments have tried to permanently cement Israeli control over the land, in part by declaring swathes as “state lands”, which prevents private Palestinian ownership.
The motion was said to have been put forward by the far-right defence minister, Israel Katz, and the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who lives in the West Bank settlement of Kedumim, which is considered illegal under international law.
Katz said the settlement decision “strengthens our hold on Judea and Samaria”, using the biblical term for the West Bank, “anchors our historical right in the Land of Israel, and constitutes a crushing response to Palestinian terrorism”.
He added it was also “a strategic move that prevents the establishment of a Palestinian state that would endanger Israel”.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Spanish Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares speaks to press ahead of the international meeting to discuss ending the war between Israel and Hamas, and advancing toward a two-state solution, in Madrid, Spain on May 25, 2025. [Şenhan Bolelli – Anadolu Agency]
Spain’s foreign minister insisted Sunday that the two-state solution is the only alternative to conflict between Israel and Palestine and is pushing for concrete measures to advance it at an international meeting in Madrid, Anadolu reports.
“What’s the alternative? Kill all the Palestinians? Send them, I don’t know where—to the moon?” Jose Manuel Albares said in a speech ahead of the meeting.
Madrid is hosting a group of 20 countries—foreign representatives from European nations, Muslim countries, and Brazil—as well as international organizations to discuss ending the war, Israel’s siege on Gaza, and advancing toward a two-state solution.
“Gaza is an open wound for humanity… There are no words to describe what is happening in Gaza—but just because there are no words doesn’t mean we will remain silent,” said Albares.
The number of countries in the so-called Madrid Plus Group has doubled, said Albares, with countries like Germany, Italy, France, and Portugal, which did not attend the first meeting, showing up on Sunday.
“There’s a lot of diplomatic muscle here today,” said Albares. “We are different governments coming together, but we all believe in the same principles and are not resigned to accepting violence as the natural way for Israelis and Palestinians to relate.”
He said that “time is running out” for a two-state solution, but the Madrid meeting aims to clarify “concrete steps” to turn the situation around for the sake of both Palestinians and Israelis.
Albares said Spain will push for measures to end the war, including suspending the EU-Israel trade agreement, an EU-wide arms embargo on Israel, sanctioning more individuals linked to the conflict, and “making the two-state solution impossible.”
Spain will propose that the upcoming UN meeting on June 16 be used as a “great movement for the recognition of a Palestinian state,” he added.
“Then, around a year later, we can hold another international meeting with Palestine as a full state with complete rights within the UN,” he said.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Vote For Genocide Vote Labour.UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Climate activists from Greenpeace and Uplift during a demonstration outside the Scottish Court of Session, Edinburgh, on the first day of the Rosebank and Jackdaw judicial review hearing, November 12, 2024
HUMAN rights and environmental groups have challenged Rosebank oil field’s links to illegal Israeli settlements at its owner’s AGM.
Amnesty International intervened at the AGM of Equinor — the majority owner of the controversial Rosebank oil field — in Norway on Wednesday over its links to Delek Group, an Israeli fuel conglomerate.
Equinor shares ownership of Rosebank with Ithaca Energy, which is majority-owned by Delek Group.This means Equinor’s Rosebank project could send £253 million to the group, which operates in illegal settlements and provides fuel to the IDF, the campaigners say.
Delek Group has also been flagged by the UN for human rights violations in Palestine.
Greenpeace also tabled a first-of-its-kind shareholder proposal, which calls on Equinor to conduct due diligence over its links to companies operating in Israel’s illegal settlements.
Climate activists from Greenpeace and Uplift during a demonstration outside the Scottish Court of Session, Edinburgh, on the first day of the Rosebank and Jackdaw judicial review hearing, November 12, 2024