Detained Global Sumud Flotilla activists report ‘torture’ amid deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza

As Israel continues to bomb what’s left of Gaza, activists who were onboard a humanitarian aid mission to the besieged enclave have given first-hand accounts of “torture” suffered under Israeli detention.

The Global Sumud Flotilla, consisting of dozens of vessels carrying about 462 activists from 47 countries, was the latest international humanitarian mission which sought to deliver aid to starving Palestinians who remain powerless in the face of Israel’s relentless assault.

Between 1 and 3 October, the Israeli government began intercepting the flotilla’s vessels in international waters. All activists aboard the vessels were immediately arrested, detained, and subjected to torture, accusations which the Israeli government denies.

By Monday, around 341 flotilla activists who were detained and “tortured” in Israeli prisons were deported to Greece and Slovakia, according to a report published by Al Jazeera.

“From the moment of interception, all activists were held incommunicado, with communication systems having been jammed, some of them subjected to degrading treatment, and doused with water cannons. In short, the activists’ humanitarian mission was violently crushed,” according to the statement released by the Flotilla.

José Nivoi, an Italian trade union representative who was among the first activists to be deported, described how around 200 of the activists were forced to kneel and look at the ground in a prison yard for hours before being stripped of all personal belongings and being subjected to hours of interrogation.

L’Unione Sindacale di Base (USB), one of the biggest trade unions in Italy, which helped bring port commerce to a halt following the illegal interception, later added that Nivoi’s testimony, “shows only a fragment of the daily horrors that thousands of Palestinians endure in Zionist prisons: places of torture, humiliation, and the annihilation of the human being.”

British-Palestinian journalist Kieran Andrieu, who was also among the hundreds of other deported flotilla participants, told Democracy Now! that he saw Israeli soldiers “throwing people’s medicine in the bin in front of them and laughing in their faces,” adding that “they were totally and utterly insensitive to the possibilities of any of us dying.”

According to multiple testimonies, Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg was singled out by Israeli soldiers throughout the whole ordeal, including being forced to wear an Israeli flag around her person while Israeli soldiers posed for selfies.

Other detainees described being beaten regularly, being denied access to to clean water and food, and constant sleep deprivation. Multiple participants also said they were not allowed to speak to the flotilla’s legal counsel and subjected to aggressive intimidation tactics whenever they requested to do so.

Though the situation on the ground in Palestine remains extremely dangerous, international solidarity movements ramped up their efforts to diplomatically isolate Israel, including by pressuring Western governments to formally recognise the Palestinian state.

Following Malta’s formal recognition of the Palestinian state at a United Nations Summit last month, both Prime Minister Robert Abela and Opposition leader Alex Borg participated in a ceremonial flag-raising event at the Palestinian embassy in Swieqi.