Flotilla members 'had to experience violence of psychopathic regime', says 61-year-old Cork volunteer

Paddy O'Donovan, an experienced seaman and retired gravestone maker from Cobh, said his chest was damaged from toxic smoke after the firebombs hit the boats

Paddy O'Donovan aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza with Greta Thunberg.

Watching the slaughter and starvation of children in Gaza on the news, while his own grandchildren played safely nearby, made Paddy O’Donovan feel that he had to do something.

Although never political before, the 61-year-old experienced seaman and retired gravestone maker from Cobh, Co Cork, saw the Global Sumud Flotilla was looking for volunteers to crew boats carrying aid to besieged Gaza and decided to apply.

“I applied on the Thursday night and  ...  left Barcelona on the Sunday. Five weeks later, we were intercepted by the IDF [Israeli Defense Forces].” 

Mr O’Donovan was one of 450 humanitarians and 15 Irish aboard the 42 boats in the Global Sumud Flotilla. He was the skipper on the first boat to be firebombed at night when the flotilla was moored in a port in Tunisia. 

The fire that fell stuck to everything like napalm, he said.

“I heard an explosion. I came rushing up [from bed]. The fire alarms were going off. I got the fire extinguisher and started to break the fire."

Had those firebombs hit a smaller boat — like one of the many yachts in the flotilla — people would have died, he said.

Mr O’Donovan coughed throughout the interview. He said his chest was damaged from toxic smoke after the firebombs that night.

Another night, a swarm of drones attacked again. They firebombed the other smaller yachts with “flashbangs and improvised explosives”, he said.

Drones constantly circled the boats, he said, being particularly visible at night as their lights flashed about the flotilla.

You never knew if they were carrying explosives or if they were just there for surveillance 

The night their boat was intercepted on October 2, their radios and Starlink internet had been jammed.

A large Israeli warship was heading straight towards them, and Mr O’Donovan thought they were going to be rammed.

With no radio, he sent an emergency call for help by an emergency position-indicating radiobeacon (EPIRB), an emergency locator beacon used in shipping.

“If you see or hear a signal from one of those, every ship is obliged to head in that direction because life is at risk," Mr O'Donovan said. But not one ship came to help over eight hours.

Mr O’Donovan’s boat had lost power when the Israeli authorities approached and boarded from their destroyer and rigid inflatable boats.

This frame grab from video released by the Global Sumud Flotilla shows Israeli navy soldiers aboard one of the flotilla's vessels after it was intercepted as it approached the coast of Gaza early Thursday, October 2. Picture: Global Sumud Flotilla via AP)

The crew was ordered below deck at gunpoint, and Israeli authorities made holes in the boat to sink it.

Guns were pointed at the crew as the water crept up their legs while the ship slowly flooded, he said.

“I thought they were going to shoot us," he said.

But Israeli authorities then said they would “save” the crew.

They were transferred to the destroyer and brought to Ashdod port in Israel.

At the port, they were forced to the ground. Cable ties were placed so tightly on some people’s wrists behind their backs that they bled, Mr O’Donovan said.

Then they were transferred to Ktzi'ot Prison, Israel’s largest detention facility, based in the Negev desert.

They were stripped naked and cavity searched before being put in overcrowded cells, he said.

The cells stank of urine, and they gave us no water. They said to drink from the toilet

There was one tap in each cell, with water which tasted "horrible", he said.

Mr O’Donovan said he was denied his heart medication. Another man, a diabetic, was not given his insulin.

Mr O’Donovan and about 100 other flotilla members went on hunger strike over their treatment.

“They put us, the hunger strikers, into cells with banquets of food.

“And they didn't give any decent food to the people that did want to eat."

They were also denied sleep in prison — a recognised form of torture.

“You could hear the screams at night," he said.

Paddy O'Donovan aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza with Liam Cunningham.

“They were pointing guns in at us. When we were trying to sleep, they'd light you up with their lasers. And they’d say they were going to put a bullet in you. They’d point the guns at your head.

“You’d have constant interruptions every night. There was no communication with the outside world. We didn't know if we were ever going to be freed or if we were going to survive. 

“They'd come into the cell, fully armed men with machine guns, and they'd push everyone to the back wall and they'd do their head counts.

They’d call you ‘Irish scum’, say that we were animals, and they were going to shoot us

“And the people on the flotilla were the loveliest, kindest people I’ve ever met in 61 years of life.

“One day, they said we were going to meet the consulate. They put us in a cage outside in the baking sun.” 

And while white Irish were denied medicine and clean water, people from the flotilla from the global south or with darker skin were treated with even more disdain, he said.

Palestinians were treated the worst, chained to the ground and blindfolded with dogs circling them, he said.

'Bombs going off every couple of hours'

Mr O’Donovan immediately signed up to return on another flotilla, should one be needed.

“The people there need our help," he said.

In jail, he could constantly hear planes and helicopters overhead and hear frequent explosions in nearby Gaza.

“There were bombs going off every couple of hours," he said.

“What’s happening is horrific. A man-made famine in a place the length of Cork to Cobh with 2m people, or there were 2m people there.

"And the world has done nothing."

"They [Israeli forces] are the terrorists," he claimed.

"The world needs to wake up to that. I met the most incredible, lovely people [on the flotilla]. Pure humanitarians. There wasn't a violent bone in anybody.

“And yet, we had to experience the violence of this psychopathic regime — where there was no empathy with human beings.

"People have no right to terrorise other people and take their homes, take everything. 

"There's billions worth of gas and oil off Gaza that [Benjamin] Netanyahu said he wants. 

"There's such greed in this capitalist society. And powerful entities will take what they want from anyone.

"History will judge people for sitting back and doing nothing. Hopefully, we can make a change little by little."