All Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Thousand Madleens volunteers freed after Israeli abduction

All the volunteers participating in the Thousands Madleens and the Freedom Flotilla Coalition’s Conscience Mission humanitarian flotilla have been released from detention after their abduction by Israel last week and subsequent abuse and ritual humiliation by Israeli forces.

Freedom Flotilla and Madleens volunteers released

The two flotillas were carrying aid to Gaza in attempt to break Israel’s criminal blockade that put hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians into the most serious phase of starvation. They were criminally intercepted in international waters on 8 October around 120 nautical miles from Gaza’s coast. Israel intercepted the much larger Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) earlier this month and abducted its volunteer crews of almost five hundred people.

Israel deported dozens of Freedom Flotilla Coalition/Thousands Madleens participants earlier on Sunday 12 October. With them were Huwaida Arraf and Zohar Regev, both dual nationals holding Israeli citizenship, the last to be released. Earlier this week Palestinian legal support group Adalah represented one hundred and forty-five volunteers from the two flotillas in court, along with some of those who had been aboard the GSF.

Adalah received dozens of testimonies from participants describing degrading and often violent abuse inflicted by Israeli forces during the attack on their fleet and subsequent detention.

Israeli abuse rife

The abuse included physical and verbal assaults, being forced to remain in the sun for prolonged periods, the confiscation of personal belongings and harsh detention conditions in Ketziot prison, including denial of adequate food and drinking water, denial of access to legal counsel, hearings conducted without prior notice or proper legal representation and in one case a Muslim woman doctor being paraded naked while guards mocked her mastectomy scars, whose abuse has been ignored by western so-called ‘mainstream’ media.

Adalah has again underlined that Israel’s attack on unarmed civilians in international waters, seizure of humanitarian vessels and detention of crews are grave and blatant breaches of international law. UK PM Keir Starmer, despite the presence of British citizens among those abducted, said that the attacks – which constitute piracy and war crimes – are “a matter for the Israeli government”.  The government has been threatened with legal action for abandoning its duty to protect UK citizens under attack.

Featured image via the Canary