'What they've been enduring is horrific': Fears for two activists detained on Gaza flotilla
A screengrab from one of the cameras onboard showing the interception of one of the vessels in the flotilla. Picture: eire_globalsumud
Drones swarmed around the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) moments before fleets of speedboats approached them in international waters — the first sign of Israel’s approach on Wednesday evening.
Catríona Graham, from Dublin, had been in a meeting with Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila just before their interception and Saif Abukeshek, a Spanish national of Palestinian origin was also on board. Both men have been detained since by Israel with reports that they have been tortured and threatened with death.
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An Israeli magistrate’s court on Tuesday granted the state’s request to extend the detention of the two humanitarian activists for an additional six days until May 10. Their defence lawyers say that they have clear evidence that the allegations against them are baseless.
However, Judge Yaniv Ben-Haroush approved the extension based on “secret evidence” of which neither the activists nor their legal counsel were permitted to have sight, GSF claims.
Lawyers from the Adalah human rights group, Hadeel Abu Salih and Lubna Tuma, will appeal the extension of their detention. They have criticised it as "judicial validation of the state’s lawlessness".
Formal charges have not been filed against the activists, and they were arrested more than 1,000km away from Gaza, outside Israeli jurisdiction.
Mr Ávila and Mr Abukeshek are on hunger strike. They say they are being subjected to systematic psychological and physical torture.
Both men are being held in total isolation under high-intensity lighting 24 hours a day to induce sleep deprivation and disorientation, GSF said. The activists are kept blindfolded during all movements, including medical examinations, they say.
Also interrogators have threatened Thiago Ávila’s life and issued threats against the families of the detained, GSF said.
“What they've been enduring is horrific,” Ms Graham said. “Thiago reported having been interrogated for eight or nine hours.
"He was told that they would kill him and that he would be in prison for 100 years. It is an absolute injustice that they are being treated in this way.”
Ms Graham is calling for their urgent release. She is particularly concerned about Mr Abukeshek, who has Palestinian heritage and may therefore be a target for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).
“We really need everyone all around the world to join in calling for their release. We need governments to join. We know that Spain and Brazil are working together to call for their release.”
More than 50 boats had set sail from France, Spain and Italy on April 12, intending to break an Israeli blockade of Gaza and bring desperately needed aid to Palestine. Of 22 Irish participants in the GSF flotilla, seven were detained by Israel, including Ms Graham.
Margaret Connolly, sister of President Catherine Connolly, was among the 22 Irish people on the boats but was not detained by Israeli forces. Irish participants ranged in age from their 20s to their 70s and included teachers, nurses, poets, doctors, charity workers, tour guides, and sailors.
The flotilla was intercepted last Wednesday night in international waters off Greece. Activists were shocked by the interception so close to Europe’s shores.
Ms Graham was part of the flotilla’s co-ordination team in Sicily, Italy, working there for approximately one month before departure. She was travelling on the support boat, which left after the main flotilla.
They had only been on the water for about three days before it was intercepted. Once their fleet was intercepted, IDF officers boarded and “pointed guns at our heads and chests”, she said.
The activists had their life jackets removed and their wrists cable tied, Ms Graham said. Had someone fallen overboard, it would have been difficult to avoid drowning.
They were then loaded onto a “prison boat” and were kept there for 36 hours in wet clothes, with limited water and very limited food. When someone asked for blankets one night, sleeping on a foam mattress on the exposed deck of the boat, the deck was flooded with water, Ms Graham said.
“I was half asleep, and all of a sudden I felt water everywhere. So the mattress that I'd been lying on was soaking wet. It was freezing cold.
“Then, a few hours later, there were some very loud bangs, I think they were flashbangs, and they announced through the speakers that they would be taking us off in small groups to land.”
But six activists had been separated from the group and taken into isolation, Ms Graham said. The activists demanded that their colleagues be returned to the group before they left.
However, Ms Graham was then grabbed by the hair and dragged away to a container near the exit, she said.
“And then, one by one, they started putting people onto this raft that was manned by, we believe, the Greek Coast Guard,” she said. As more people were loaded onto the raft, some had "very bloodied faces, already starting to swell", Ms Graham said.
“A medic assessed one of the people on the raft and said that there was a concussion with severe identified amnesia. We were very, very worried about what was happening. And we were very worried for those in isolation.”
The commander of the raft, believed to be with the Greek Coast Guard, spoke to the IDF, and five of the six activists in isolation were released onto the raft. But Mr Ávila and Mr Abukeshek were not.
Some 35 of the detained activists were brought to hospital for treatment, Ms Graham said. “I think one person had a broken nose, there was a very severe concussion, a couple of other milder concussions. One person, I believe, had six broken ribs.”
Rubber bullets had been fired at activists, she said, and some were reportedly beaten by the IDF with batons.
“And many people were punched and kicked, thrown against walls and thrown around," she said. “The violence that we went through is unacceptable.
“I have a lot of bruising. I have a lot of aches and pains. But I will be fine.
The activists were held for hours at port by the Greek authorities with limited water and no toilet facilities, she said. But the local people in Greece brought them dry clothes and soap so they could wash and offered them places to sleep, Ms Graham said.
Israel has been allowed by the West to act with impunity, first in the Middle East and now at Europe’s shores, Ms Graham said. Ms Graham has remained in Crete and is working to get the next flotilla to Gaza out to sea within the next week.
“We expect protection of Irish citizens. We expect accountability for illegal kidnap," she said. “But our main call to the Irish government is [to impose] sanctions against Israel, also recognising that Israel is taking illegal actions in Gaza and across the West Bank.”
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