Israeli Guards Sexually Assaulted Activists, Released Captives Say

Israeli forces raped and sexually assaulted numerous activists who were kidnapped in international waters while trying to deliver aid to Gaza, participants have said.

Speaking to reporters after being deported to Turkey on Thursday, flotilla participant Juliet Lamont said she was among 12 people sexually assaulted on a prison boat, which held some 180 of the 428 activists who were abducted this week.

“We were tortured,” she told the Anadolu Agency. “I was put down, cable-tied, they put so much water under me for an hour that I thought I was going to drown. I was sexually assaulted in this kind of torture chamber.”  

She added: “We had people who were tasered in the face. People were syringed with unknown sedatives.”

“It was not one, not two, not three. [but] many cases of sexual violence against our participants,” added Thiago Avila, a flotilla organiser who was kidnapped and tortured in a separate round of interceptions by Israel on 1 May.

He spoke to reporters after arriving in Istanbul to greet the newly released participants.  

“The scenario is horrific,” he said. “People were raped, people were tortured, people were assaulted in the worst ways possible. And the worst thing is to know that they do much worse with Palestinians.”

He added: “It’s very important that we show this to the world, that we show who they really are. They are rapists. They are baby killers, they are war criminals.”

Many of the released activists showed visible marks from being beaten and tortured.  

On Wednesday Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, drew global condemnation after posting a video of the activists being brutalised in detention. The UK has summoned Israel’s top diplomat in Britain to express its “strong condemnation” of the conduct shown in the video. 

A UN commission of inquiry found last year that Israel’s use of sexual violence was systemic, serving to “dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people in whole or in part”.

Israel is holding over 9,000 Palestinians in what local rights group B’Tselem has described as a network of torture camps. There have been several reports of Israeli guards using dogs to rape Palestinians.