Craig Murray, former head of the maritime section at the UK’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, has said the “possession of vessels and the abduction of crews” at sea can be pursued as a crime in domestic jurisdictions after Israel intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla.

“The flotilla is on the High Seas and not in Israel’s 12-mile territorial sea. Israel has no jurisdiction,” Murray said on X.

Murray, as per Al Jazeera, previously headed up British delegations regarding legal aspects of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. He highlighted that an “attack by a state military warship on a vessel on the High Seas is an attack on the flag state of the vessel attacked”.

“So the Metropolitan Police and DPP [Director of Public Prosecutions] have an obligation to investigate and act over the abduction of persons from UK-flagged vessels on the High Seas,” he added.

“This applies to each flag state mutatis mutandi.”