The peaceful Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla has been illegally attacked in international waters by Israeli armed forces for the second time.

Greenpeace echoes the Global Sumud Flotilla’s urgent demand for safe passage for their peaceful humanitarian mission. Governments must act now to stop these illegal acts of aggression.

Greenpeace spokesperson Pujarini Sen said: “In Palestine, in Lebanon and now in international waters, Israel’s disregard for human rights and international law cannot be tolerated. How long will the world stand by and watch Israel act with such impunity?

“Greenpeace calls on all governments to act with urgency to uphold international law and ensure the immediate release and protection of the Global Sumud Flotilla with concrete steps to ensure its safe passage to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.”

The Global Sumud Flotilla is a peaceful international movement sailing to oppose Israel’s genocidal siege on Gaza, to confront the complicity that enables occupation, and to stand with the Palestinian people.

The Israeli government continues to enforce a blockade by land and sea of aid and food from international organisations. Blocking aid and targeting those who attempt to deliver it are violations of international humanitarian law.⁣

ENDS

The Flotilla Tracker map shows the location of the vessels: https://globalsumudflotilla.org/tracker/ 

Live streams from the flotilla: https://globalsumudflotilla.org/live

Contact:

Greenpeace International Press Desk, pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org, +31 20 718 2470 (24 hours)

County Kilkenny, Ireland — Greenpeace International activists flew a ‘Stop the Billionaire Takeoff’ message near Kelcy Warren’s Irish estate Castletown Cox in County Kilkenny to call attention to this Big Oil bully’s widely reported takeover of the nearby Waterford Airport. 

Susannah Compton, Head of Civic Resistance at Greenpeace International, said: “Our message to Trump-donating billionaire and reported Waterford Airport investor Kelcy Warren is that his billions and his proximity to President Trump can buy a lot, but it can’t buy anonymity: his decade of legal attempts to squash free speech and silence opposition to his energy giant’s pipelines will always follow him.” 

“The billionaire takeoff is accelerating the already devastating impacts of climate change. A healthy future is dependent on curtailing the influence of billionaires whose businesses cook the planet and who use their power to attempt to silence dissent and free speech. It’s time to resist.”

Kelcy Warren’s reported takeover over of the Waterford Airport is not the US billionaire’s only entry in the area, as he has also purchased Castletown Cox in County Kilkenny, a historic estate where he plans to build a whiskey distillery.[1][2] 

Kelcy Warren is the co-founder, largest shareholder, and Executive Chairman of Energy Transfer LP, one of the largest oil and gas pipeline companies in the US. He has been a significant donor to Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns. In the 2024 election cycle, Warren contributed millions to Trump’s campaign efforts, making him one of the top donors from the oil and gas industry.

Energy Transfer has been waging abusive lawsuits against Greenpeace International and Greenpeace in the US for nearly a decade. These SLAPPs are blatant attempts to silence free speech, eraseIndigenous leadership of the Standing Rock movement, and punish solidarity with peaceful resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. In an infamous media interview, Warren stated explicitly that Greenpeace organisations “are going to pay for this.”[3] In February, a North Dakota District Court awarded the US-based pipeline company US$345 million in damages.

Greenpeace International is taking Energy Transfer to court in the Netherlands to hold it accountable under Dutch law and the European Union’s anti-SLAPP directive for the back-to-back abusive lawsuits filed in the US.

ENDS

Photos and Videos can be accessed from the Greenpeace Media Library.

Notes:

[1] Kelcy Warren’s reported takeover over of the Waterford Airport https://www.waterford-news.ie/news/contracts-between-waterford-airport-and-us-oil-billionaire-kelcy-warren-officially-signed_arid-90441.html, https://www.rte.ie/news/regional/2026/0420/1569099-waterford-airport/, https://www.irishtimes.com/business/2026/01/06/texan-oil-pipeline-billionaire-behind-30m-investment-in-waterford-airport/, https://www.independent.ie/business/deal-with-us-billionaire-kelcy-warren-to-invest-30m-in-waterford-airport-near-completion/a2036430263.html

[2] Texas oil billionaire gets nod to build private whisky distillery on grounds of Kilkenny estate

[3] Warren stated that Greenpeace organisations “are going to pay for this.”

Contacts:

Greenpeace International Press Desk, +31 (0)20 718 2470 (available 24 hours), pressdesk.int@greenpeace.org

Oil company war profiteering, a deep arctic expedition, and a planned megafarm in Spain. Here are some images from Greenpeace work around the world over the past week.

U.K. – Greenpeace UK activists project the truth about the source of Shell’s huge profits onto their global headquarters by the Thames in London as well as next to a Shell petrol station. The projections include the messages “They Profit We Pay”, “War Profiteers”, “At Least We are Making Billions”, “War Profits HQ” and “Making a killing”.

Greece – Damaged component on board the ship Mystere, part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, found adrift by Greenpeace after the flotilla was illegally intercepted in international waters by Israeli forces as they attempted to break the long standing illegal blockade of Gaza.

Ireland – Greenpeace marine biologist and chief scientist Dr. Sandra Schöttner onboard a research vessel departing Ireland this week en route to the Arctic.

Greenpeace will deploy an ROV (Remotely Operated Vehicle) to a depth of 3000m to gather scientific evidence of the diversity, distribution and connectivity of fauna in Arctic deep-sea ecosystems in the mining area – with particular focus on vulnerable, rare, endemic and undescribed species – in order to trigger international, regional and national conservation protocols. The expedition will be live-streamed via this page.

Senegal – Facing Down Bullies, a Greenpeace campaign push against the Energy Transfer SLAPP case against Greenpeace International and USA. Greenpeace Africa volunteers in Congo unite in solidarity, raising their voices against corruption, corporate greed, and authoritarianism. Together, we speak out and take action to defend our rights, freedoms, and environment – because power belongs to the people.

Spain- Greenpeace Spain opposes the construction of a large-scale poultry farm in San Clemente (Cuenca) that would house nearly a million hens.

Norway – Ahead of the 2026 Equinor AGM, Greenpeace Norway activists project messages on the head office in Stavanger, Norway to protest the obscene profits made since the start of the Iran war pushed up global oil prices.

Netherlands – Greenpeace Netherlands activists have disrupted the first-ever shareholder meeting of meat giant JBS in the Netherlands. At the Sheraton Hotel at Schiphol Airport, where the meeting took place, activists hung a banner dripping with fake blood that read: ‘JBS: Keep your bloody business out of Africa’. Activists entered the meeting hall, where Greenpeace Director Marieke Vellekoop personally served an information request to the JBS CEOs. This document formally signals that Greenpeace Netherlands is taking legal action against the company. The goal of the legal battle is to block JBS’s destructive expansion plans in Nigeria.

Greenpeace has been a pioneer of photo activism for more than 50 years, and remains committed to bearing witness and exposing environmental injustice through the images we capture.

To see more Greenpeace photos and videos, visit our Media Library.

My name is Elizabeth, a Pan-African food campaigner with Greenpeace Africa working to defend food sovereignty, ecological justice and community rights across the continent. A few months ago, Greenpeace Africa called out JBS, the world’s largest meat company, which has signed a $2.5 billion deal to import its dangerous business model to Nigeria.

That’s why last week I was in Amsterdam, where I watched as Greenpeace Netherlands and dozens of activists took over  the JBS’ first shareholder meeting since it became a Dutch company in 2025. The purpose? Deliver a Disclosure Letter, a first step toward legal action that could stop JBS’ aggressive expansion plans in their tracks.

The letter demands that JBS make public plans, impact assessments and consultations about its Nigeria expansion – and seeing JBS executives fleeing their own meeting made clear how desperate they are to avoid scrutiny. But they can’t escape our message: Keep JBS’ bloody business out of Africa. 

Outside the meeting, my colleague Ferdinand recorded a powerful message for JBS execs. They legged it before he could deliver it in person, but I hope you can take the time to watch it and share it on your own channels. Support from people like you is vital to keeping the pressure on as we move forward with our allies.

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When multinationals talk about new markets and “geographic diversification” in the Global South, what they often mean is taking control over land, water, food systems and livelihoods. Nigerians have seen first-hand the destruction that another infamous Dutch company, Shell, already wrought on their country: decades of environmental destruction, pollution and broken promises. JBS follows the same playbook: peddling empty promises, refusing transparency, and ignoring civil society.

JBS has not made public critical information about the impact their plans will have on local communities and on the land and the water they depend on – the things that matter for their immediate security – as well as globally through climate change and biodiversity loss.

But based on JBS’ track record – a business model characterised by massive emissions and linked to environmental destruction, corruption scandals and human rights violations – that expansion will come at an intolerable cost to people and planet. All to line their pockets. 

Well, not on our watch.

How we stop JBS’ expansion

JBS was warned last year, before it relocated its headquarters from Brazil to the Netherlands, that as a Dutch company it would need to play by Dutch law. Greenpeace Netherlands is now laying the foundation for a legal challenge in court to block JBS’ expansion plans. This is on the grounds that  by causing dangerous harm to climate, nature and human rights , it is in breach of Dutch law.

That is why Greenpeace Netherlands has given JBS three weeks to release the files that could help expose the true scale of the damage its expansion will cause. Under a new Dutch law, if JBS doesn’t hand them over, Greenpeace Netherlands can petition a Dutch court to compel it to do so. And in those files, dear friends, we believe is the information that would allow JBS’ dangerous $6 billion announced expansion plans , nearly half of which is earmarked for Nigeria , to be assessed and challenged in the Dutch courts.

Stopping their plans will leave space for the real solutions for nature and food sovereignty Africa needs.

And the success of a campaign like this relies on the support from people like you. 

JBS is already “active” in Nigeria

In its agreement with Nigeria’s government, JBS has pledged to build six giant meat-processing plants that would permanently alter Nigerian food production. These plans are framed as a solution to “food insecurity.” But let’s be clear about what this really is: a massive corporate takeover that threatens to lock in spiralling emissions for decades, drain water sources, and upend the food sovereignty that millions of families depend on.

After its expansion plans were splashed across Dutch media last week,  JBS told journalists that it isn’t “active” in Nigeria yet and that “they will inform shareholders when they are”.  This type of evasive statement is absolutely typical for JBS. But let’s be frank: you don’t announce a $2.5 billion deal unless you mean business. And what limited information is public gives a strong indication of just how far their plans have advanced already.

In Niger state, the government has already publicly pledged a staggering 1.2 million hectares of land – an area the size of the Gambia – for this expansion. And as the Governor of Ogun state acknowledged last year in the presence of JBS’ billionaire bosses Josley and Wesley Batista, JBS has already dispatched a “technical team to Nigeria to conduct feasibility studies” to expand into his state.

So while available evidence suggests business assessments and massive land deals are being made, actual formal and official information on what and where is unavailable. JBS cannot be allowed to continue operating in the shadows. 

To be clear, the challenges facing Nigeria’s food production are real. Shrinking grazing corridors, land degradation, and resource-driven conflict are serious, genuine threats that demand urgent action. But as civil society organisations in Nigeria have argued, the response to a system under stress should be properly supporting local farmers and communities and restoring nature. Not transferring food sovereignty away from communities who depend on this land to an unaccountable foreign corporation.

People have a right to know exactly what deals are being struck in their name. And what’s more, they should have the right to choose a different food future.

The time of Billionaire impunity is over – climate justice can’t wait

While civil society organisations in Nigeria are raising their voices to demand agency over the future of the land, Greenpeace Africa is pressing for a legal framework to ensure giant polluters can finally be held accountable for the damage they cause to the Global South, no matter where they are based in the world.

That is why, in March this year, Greenpeace Africa petitioned the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights to deliver a ruling  declaring as much. This would be a critical milestone in challenging the impunity with which corporations operate in Africa. 

Like Ferdinand said, “Make no mistake: JBS is the new Shell”. Because behind their promised development lies a business model that thrives on corruption, treating both nature and food not as fundamental rights, but as extractive resources to line the pockets of wealthy international elites.

The billionaires need to know that the era of corporate impunity on this continent is over. JBS was given 21 days to release the files and they now have 7 days left. The clock is ticking.

Elizabeth Atieno is a food campaigner at Greenpeace Africa

This blog was updated on 15 May to include a video from Greenpeace Africa about the action in the Netherlands.