VALLETTA: Pro-Palestinian activists aboard a boat damaged in an alleged Israeli drone strike have allowed a Maltese surveyor to inspect the vessel and six crew members have agreed to disembark, Malta’s premier told parliament Monday.
Prime Minister Robert Abela has said that Malta could tow the stricken Conscience to port for repairs once a maritime expert has been allowed to board the ship and study the results of Friday’s alleged attack.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition had hoped to pick up supporters, including Swedish activist Greta Thunberg, in Malta then sail on to Gaza to deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinian victims of Israel’s blockade of the territory and renewed military assault against the Hamas militant group.
But, on Friday, a fire broke out on board the vessel after what the group says was a double drone strike, which the activists argue was most likely launched by Israel to halt or delay their mission.
Neither Israel nor Malta, whose vessels intervened to help douse the fire, have confirmed the attack.
But Abela promised that the Conscience will be allowed to continue on its mission once any necessary repairs are concluded. The Flotilla Coalition has welcomed the offer.
“Six people on this ship made a request to come ashore to our country and then immediately leave to their countries,” Abela told parliament Monday.
Previously, the international activists had resisted calls for them to abandon ship, fearing being forced to drop their mission.
“This request was accepted immediately and those people are in the process of being transported to Malta by the Armed Forces of Malta, and they will catch a plane back to their country later today,” the premier said.
Initially, Flotilla Coalition volunteers had said the surveyor would only be allowed on board if the ship was towed into Maltese territorial waters, but Abela said that was not acceptable, as Malta wanted to know more about the condition of the vessel before taking charge of its safety.
Malta also refused a request that three individuals currently not on board be taken out to the Conscience with the inspector.
“The ship’s captain now has accepted that the surveyor is allowed on board while the ship sits outside Malta’s territorial waters, and I’m informed that the surveyor is in process of arriving at the ship,” Abela said.
During an online press conference on Sunday, before Monday’s departure of six crew members, the flotilla group said there were 18 people on board, 12 crew members and six “human rights observers.”


The activists explained the Conscience has no flag because the government of the Pacific nation of Palau had announced that they were withdrawing their registration on Friday, the day of the alleged strike.
Otherwise, they insisted they had made every effort to comply with international maritime law when embarking on the mission to take aid to Palestinians in Gaza.
According to the Flotilla Coalition, the Conscience was attacked in international waters, causing a fire that disabled the vessel and minor injuries to crew members.
Online flight tracking service ADS-B Exchange showed that an Israeli C-130 military cargo plane had been in the area immediately before the incident and had made several low altitude sweeps over the area.
Israel is known for conducting covert operations beyond its borders, including several during the Gaza war that it only acknowledged later.
The activists said the strike appeared to target the boat’s generator.
Thunberg told reporters that the incident should not distract from the focus of the boat’s mission to Gaza.
“What we are doing here is to try our very best to use all the means that we have to do our part, to keep trying to break the inhumane and illegal siege on Gaza and to open up humanitarian corridors,” she said.

WASHINGTON: The Trump administration said Monday it will pay for the travel and give $1,000 to undocumented migrants who “self-deport” back to their home country.

US President Donald Trump said some of the undocumented migrants who take advantage of the self-deportation scheme will be given a path to legally return to the United States.

“We’re going to pay each one a certain amount of money, and we’re going to get them a beautiful flight back to where they came from,” Trump told reporters during an event at the White House.

“We’re going to work with them so that maybe someday, with a little work, they can come back in if they’re good people, if they’re the kind of people that we want in our (country),” he said. “It will give them a path to coming back into the country.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, announcing the travel assistance and $1,000 stipend program, said “self-deportation is the best, safest and most cost-effective way to leave the United States to avoid arrest.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is “offering illegal aliens financial travel assistance and a stipend to return to their home country through the CBP Home App.”

CBP Home refers to an app already created by the DHS through which people can deport themselves.

DHS said the stipend of $1,000 will be paid after a person’s return to their home country has been confirmed through the app.

“Self-deportation is a dignified way to leave the US and will allow illegal aliens to avoid being encountered by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE),” the department said in the statement.

DHS said that even with the payment of travel assistance and the stipend “it is projected that the use of CBP Home will decrease the costs of a deportation by around 70 percent.”

It said that the average cost currently to arrest, detain, and remove an undocumented migrant is $17,121.

DHS said an undocumented migrant from Honduras had already taken advantage of the program to return home.

Trump pledged during his presidential campaign to carry out mass deportations and claimed during the White House event that there are as many as 21 million undocumented migrants in the United States.

However the number of undocumented migrants stood at 11.0 million in 2022, according to Pew Research Center estimates based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.