The Israeli Police released a video on Thursday documenting the detention of dozens of activists who had boarded vessels in a flotilla attempting to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

"During Yom Kippur, the Israeli police prepared to receive the flotilla that came to break the blockade on Gaza. Over six hundred police officers, prison service personnel, and Immigration Authority personnel were deployed at the Ashdod port, and effectively received them while they checked, registered and documented the participants of the flotilla", said Chief Superintendent Eli Shmul, Commander of the Lachish District in the police.

The Global Sumud Flotilla was the largest yet to try to break the blockade, and it comes at a time of growing criticism of Israel's conduct in Gaza, where its offensive has laid waste to wide swaths of territory and killed tens of thousands of people.

Activists had said they hoped that the sheer number of boats would make it more difficult for Israeli authorities to intercept them all — but Israel’s Foreign Ministry declared the operation over on Thursday afternoon.

Supporters of the flotilla took to the streets in several major cities after news of the interception broke — including in Rome; Istanbul; Athens, Greece; and Buenos Aires, Argentina — to decry the Israeli operation and the ongoing offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The flotilla, which started out with more than 40 boats and nearly 450 activists, was carrying a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Its main goal, they said, remained "to break Israel’s illegal siege and end the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people".

Israel's Foreign Ministry dismissed it as a “provocation, ,saying that various countries have offered to deliver the aid the boats were carrying. Israel has come under intense criticism for how much aid it lets into Gaza and how it distributes the goods. It has vehemently denied it is committing genocide.

The organizers of the flotilla said at least 39 of their boats were intercepted or assumed to be intercepted in a nightlong Israeli operation. Israeli authorities later said only one boat remained “at a distance” and would be intercepted if it approached.

The flotilla has streamed its voyage online via live cameras aboard different boats, though connections were lost as Israeli authorities began boarding them in international waters on Wednesday evening.