ASHDOD: Israeli warships on Tuesday intercepted a boat carrying Jewish activists trying to run the naval blockade on Gaza and escorted it to a port in southern Israel, the army and organizers said.

The military said naval forces had taken over yacht Irene and escorted it to Ashdod, adding that “there was no violence of any sort.” After disembarking, the nine passengers and crew were taken for questioning by police, officials and their lawyer said. Five of those on board are Israelis while the other four are foreign nationals who are likely to be deported.

Army footage of the incident filmed from the air showed two navy corvettes coming alongside the boat, and commandos scrambling on board and taking control of the vessel. There were no signs of violence.

Describing the boat's attempt to reach Gaza as a “provocation,” the military said the captain had ignored repeated warnings and had entered a closed naval zone, prompting the interception.

Organizers confirmed that the activists had surrendered without a struggle. “They surrendered because they were surrounded. They had no choice,” said Amjad Al-Shawa, a Gaza-based organizer.

Media reports said the passengers had been handcuffed and their phones confiscated, but organizers were unable to confirm the details, saying they had not managed to make contact with the Irene since troops came aboard.

The navy also warned that the passengers and crew would be held legally liable if they insisted on heading to Gaza, especially those with Israeli nationality. The boat was carrying seven Jewish activists from Israel, Britain, Germany and the United States, and two journalists, one of whom is an Israeli.

An Interior Ministry spokeswoman said the non-Israelis would be taken to the nearby city of Holon where they would be questioned before being taken for deportation.

The boat was carrying a cargo of symbolic aid, including children's toys, musical instruments, textbooks, fishing nets and prosthetic limbs. In the past, Israel has allowed humanitarian goods to enter the enclave after undergoing a security check. The voyage of the Irene was organized by the London-based Jews for Justice for Palestinians.

Prominent British supporters listed on its website include humorist and actor Stephen Fry and Marion Kozak, the mother of newly-elected Labour Party leader Ed Miliband and of former Foreign Minister David Miliband.

Among the passengers are an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor and an Israeli whose teenage daughter was killed in a suicide bombing in Jerusalem.

Also on Tuesday, Irish Nobel laureate and peace activist Mairead Maguire was prevented from entering Israel because of her participation in an earlier attempt to run the blockade on Gaza, a rights group and Israeli officials said.

Maguire had come to Israel to lead a delegation of women on a weeklong tour of Israel and the Palestinian territories to highlight the work of women peace activists, Fatmeh Al-Ajou, a lawyer with the Adalah rights group, said.

But on arrival at Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv, the 66-year-old was told she would not be allowed to enter because of her deportation in June after traveling on an aid ship that tried to reach Gaza, Ajou said.

“They told her it was because of her participation in the Rachel Corrie boat,” Ajou said. “They told her she will be prevented from visiting Israel for 10 years starting from today.”

Meanwhile, an expert panel investigating Israel's boarding of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla four months ago said Tuesday that Israel is suppressing footage of the incident it seized from the passengers.

The three independent, UN-appointed experts said Israeli soldiers confiscated still photos and video material from more than two dozen journalists and others aboard the flotilla during the raid, which killed nine pro-Palestinian activists.

“When the military took over the ships, they scrupulously confiscated all photographic material,” said Karl T.

Hudson-Phillips, a former judge at the International Criminal Court who chaired the panel. “All cameras were seized, all cell phones were seized, all laptops were confiscated.

“From this one would conclude that part of the strategy, as we indicated in our report, was to control information and to have a monopoly on versions as to what existed,” he told reporters at a news conference in Geneva, where the panel had presented its 56-page report to the UN Human Rights Council.