Flotilla Organisers Subjected to ‘Extreme Brutality’ in Extended Israeli Detention

Israeli soldiers beat and tortured flotilla organisers Saif Abukeshek and Thiago Ávila after abducting them in international waters near Greece in the early hours of Thursday morning, lawyers and diplomats have said. 

After illegally intercepting 22 boats and kidnapping around 200 activists hundreds of miles from Gaza, Israel transferred the majority to Greek authorities, but refused to release Abukeshek and Avila. Instead, it transported them back to an Israeli desert prison, where Palestinians are routinely tortured. 

Brazilian activist Ávila was dragged face down across the floor and beaten so badly he passed out twice, lawyers said, after they were finally able to visit him on Saturday. His wife, Lara Souza, said in a video that a Brazilian embassy official told her he had been temporarily blinded by his injuries, with his left eye remaining swollen shut, but he was being denied medical treatment. In a brief visit, where he was separated from the consul by a glass screen and not able to speak freely, he reported pain all over his body, especially in his hand and shoulder, and said that soldiers had threatened to throw him overboard and target his wife and two-year-old daughter. 

Abukeshek, who had been sailing on an observer boat and did not intend to go to Gaza, was “in shock”, his wife Sally Issa said. He was forced to lie face-down on the floor of an Israeli warship for two days, lawyers said, blindfolded and with his hands bound behind his back.

Spain has demanded Israel release Abukeshek, who is Palestinian but has Spanish and Swedish citizenship. On Friday, prime minister Pedro Sánchez said he had been “illegally abducted by the Netanyahu government”.

Foreign minister José Manuel Albares later told a radio station the arrest was made “outside the jurisdiction of Israel”. “Of course, it is a kidnapping,” he said.

Hannah Smith, who runs the Global Sumud Flotilla’s media operation, said in a video that Abukeshek had Palestinian identity documents, “putting him in a legal context that we’ve never seen with participants before”.

“We do not know how the Israeli regime will handle his case,” she said, “they can try him just as they would any Palestinian.”

Adalah, the law firm supporting the two men, said they had reported being interrogated by Israel’s Shin Bet security service. Ávila said he had been told he would also be interrogated by Mossad, on suspicion of “affiliation with a terrorist organisation”.

On Sunday, both activists appeared in Ashkelon magistrates’ court, where a judge extended their detention by a further two days.

Adalah said the Israeli state attorney presented a list of suspected offences, including “assisting the enemy during wartime, contact with a foreign agent, membership in and providing services to a terrorist organisation, and the transfer of property for a terrorist organisation”.

No formal charges have yet been filed against either Ávila or Abukeshek, and Adalah said Israeli authorities had refused to provide details of any of the offences they are being interrogated over. 

Lawyers demanded both men be immediately and unconditionally released, telling the court the entire process was “fundamentally flawed and illegal”, and describing Israel’s actions as a “retaliatory measure against humanitarian activist leaders”.

They challenged the state’s jurisdiction, arguing that there is “no legal basis for the extraterritorial application of offences to the actions of foreign nationals in international waters”.

In a statement, Adalah said: “The treatment of the two activists, including the use of isolation, prolonged blindfolding, and physical beatings, constitutes a grave violation of international law.”

Meanwhile, Smith, who was on one of the boats that was intercepted on Wednesday night, urged people to “mobilise” for Ávila and Abukeshek. “As someone who was thrown around, who was threatened to be killed, as someone who has seen two of my best friends taken, I ask the world: what kind of world do you want to live in?” she said. “And if you want to live in a better one than this one, you need to act, you need to mobilise.”

Ávila and Abukeshek have now been transferred back to solitary confinement in Shikma prison, where they are being held in windowless cells.

Both are on hunger strike, with Avila saying he will not accept release without Abukeshek.