: Israeli Forces Accused of Kidnapping, Abuse After Intercepting Gaza Aid Flotilla in International Waters
https://x.com/DropSiteNews/status/1932543727207063702
REPORT: Israeli Forces Accused of Kidnapping, Abuse After Intercepting Gaza Aid Flotilla in International Waters
A journalist and 11 activists aboard the Madleen aid boat bound for Gaza say they were abducted in international waters, abused in detention, and threatened with permanent exile by Israeli authorities — all for attempting to break the blockade and deliver aid.
Al Jazeera Mubasher reporter Omar Fayyad, one of the detainees, arrived in Paris Tuesday night after three days in Israeli custody. He described being held without access to a lawyer, locked in a sealed room on the boat, and denied food and water while Israeli forces filmed the scene.
➤ Fayyad says Israeli drones attacked the Madleen with an unknown white chemical that turned black on skin contact. Officers later admitted they didn’t know what the substance was.
➤ He and other detainees — including Greta Thunberg, French-Palestinian MP Rima Hassan, and Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila — were taken by force to Ashdod port, then interrogated and filmed while in custody. Fayyad says Hassan was directly threatened by an Israeli officer: “I will bang your head against the wall if you do not sign the paper banning you from returning to Israel.”
➤ Thunberg was held in a lit room and denied sleep, with guards entering whenever she began to rest. Thiago Ávila has since launched a hunger and water strike, protesting conditions in Israel’s IPS prison system, which detainees described as infested with bed bugs and lacking drinkable water.
➤ Fayyad also noted that Baptiste André, the French doctor aboard the Madleen, was in noticeably deteriorated health after detention and remained in Israeli custody at the time of his own release.
➤ The Freedom Flotilla Coalition said all 12 people aboard the Madleen were kidnapped in international waters, then falsely charged with “illegally entering” Israel after being forcibly transferred into Israeli territory.
➤ Israel has since imposed 100-year bans on all 12, and detained 8 of them at the Ramleh detention facility, where a tribunal reviewed their status under the Ministry of Interior.
➤ Legal advocates with Adalah say Israel has no lawful authority to detain or deport them and that the actions violate both Israeli and international law. The boat was over 100 miles from the Gaza coast when it was intercepted.
“What I saw and experienced was shocking and inhumane by all standards,” Fayyad said.
Despite the repression, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition says the mission will continue. “The blockade is illegal,” they said in a statement. “Our mission remains: to break the siege and deliver aid to Gaza.”
posted by Satish Sharma at
05:07
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