ISRAELI forces arrested 13 female peace campaigners bringing aid to the besieged Gaza Strip yesterday after hijacking their boat in international waters.

The Israeli navy towed the Dutch-flagged Zaytouna-Oliva into the port of Ashdod after intercepting it about 40 miles from the coast of Gaza.

The military said the women on board “were transferred to the appropriate authorities for further processing.”

They included Northern Irish 1976 Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire, Malaysian doctor Fauziah Hasan, retired US army colonel Ann Wright and Swedish MEP Malin Bjork.

Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Haddad said 11 of the passengers were being detained for 96 hours and would then be deported.

Ms Haddad claimed the women were given the option to leave Israel before that time but they refused.

The two other women, both journalists, were deported immediately and left Israel yesterday morning.

The International Freedom Flotilla Coalition which organised the mercy mission lost contact with the Zaytouna-Oliva on Wednesday afternoon, immediately assuming she had suffered the same fate as earlier attempts to breach the Israeli blockade.

She set sail from the Spanish port city of Barcelona on September 14.

Following the loss of contact with the vessel 45 MEPs from the Nordic Green Left, Social Democratic and Greens parliamentary groups signed a letter demanding the EU take immediate action to free the passengers and crew.

It noted the boat was seized inside the “military exclusion zone,” imposed “unilaterally and illegally by the Israeli government, in contravention of international law.”

They urged all governments “and people of conscience” to support the right of free passage, ensure the wellbeing of all onboard and “support full freedom of movement for all peoples, in particular the Palestinians of Gaza.”

Meanwhile, Israeli troops shelled Gaza for the second day in a row in retaliation for sporadic rocket attacks into southern Israel. No-one was injured on either side.

Nearly two million people have been trapped in the densely populated enclave since 2007, when Israel imposed a blockade in response to the Hamas government’s election victories there.Two brutal Israeli bombing campaigns in 2008-09 and 2014 killed thousands of people, mostly civilians.