Activists from the International Sumud Flotilla who’ve been detained in Israel since their flotilla was intercepted on its option to Gaza earlier this week are being mistreated by the Israeli Jail Service, authorized help group Adalah claimed on Saturday.
The Israeli Arab group mentioned that quite a few activists have reported being mistreated, with some saying that they had been denied meals and water and others reporting that they’ve been manhandled by Israeli regulation enforcement.
In a single occasion, Adalah mentioned that an activist, whom it didn’t determine by identify, had informed one of many group’s attorneys that each she and fellow activist Greta Thunberg had been videotaped standing in entrance of Israeli flags after being detained.
The group’s allegations appeared per a report revealed by the Guardian newspaper on Saturday, which reported that Thunberg, a outstanding Swedish pro-Palestinian and local weather campaigner, was being held in harsh circumstances in an Israeli jail.
Greater than 470 activists had been detained throughout 42 boats when the Israeli Navy intercepted the International Sumud Flotilla on Wednesday night time. Since then, greater than 130 have been deported from Israel again to their dwelling nations, most of them through Istanbul.
These nonetheless awaiting deportation are being held on the Ketziot jail within the Negev, which is one among Israel’s major safety prisons.
Greta Thunberg, detained by Israel after attempting to breach the blockade on the Gaza Strip, is seen in a photograph launched October 3, 2025, by the Overseas Ministry. (Overseas Ministry)
An Adalah spokesperson mentioned on Saturday night that a number of the flotilla members being held there have reported receiving inadequate quantities of meals, with a few of them saying on Friday that they’d obtained no meals in any respect since being delivered to the port of Ashdod.
Thunberg herself complained of receiving inadequate meals and water throughout her detention, based on correspondence with the Swedish overseas ministry.
In correspondence acquired by the Guardian, the Swedish overseas ministry informed Thunberg’s associates that the embassy had been capable of meet with the 22-year-old activist, and that she was being held in harsh circumstances.
“The embassy has been capable of meet with Greta. She knowledgeable of dehydration. She has obtained inadequate quantities of each water and meals,” learn the e-mail. “She additionally said that she had developed rashes, which she suspects had been brought on by bedbugs. She spoke of harsh therapy and mentioned she had been sitting for lengthy durations on exhausting surfaces.”
Corroborating Adalah’s account, the embassy mentioned one other detainee knowledgeable embassy employees that they’d seen Thunberg “being pressured to carry flags whereas footage had been taken.”
“She puzzled whether or not pictures of her had been distributed,” the embassy added.
This handout picture from police reveals anti-Israel activists from the International Sumud Flotilla being processed after they had been detained whereas attempting to interrupt Israel’s maritime blockade on Hamas-ruled Gaza, October 2, 2025. (Israel Police)
Talking to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Company information outlet, activist and journalist Ersin Çelik, who was deported from Israel on Saturday, alleged that jail employees had singled out Thunberg particularly, and had “pressured her to kiss the Israeli flag.”
In response to a question on the matter of forcing Thunberg to carry an Israeli flag, an Israel Jail Service spokesman informed the Instances of Israel that the company was “unaware of such an incident.”
Different activists have informed Adalah’s attorneys that they’ve been shoved, roughly dealt with, shoved to the bottom, or punched at some stage through the interception and detention.
Many additionally said they’d been left within the solar, sitting on their knees for hours through the course of Thursday, earlier than being delivered to a listening to in entrance of an immigration authority tribunal.
The professional-government information outlet Channel 14 reported that far-right Nationwide Safety Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited Ketziot to make sure that the protesters had been being given “the minimal of the minimal,” in accordance with the protocols he has imposed on Palestinian safety prisoners.
“We’re in Ketziot jail, and as I promised, these flotilla members, supporters of terrorism, are right here in a safety jail,” Channel 14 reported Ben Gvir as saying.
“They obtain circumstances for terrorists right here, for all the pieces, terrorist sweatpants, terrorist circumstances. This implies, there’s a minimal of the minimal, that’s what I promised and that’s how we’re fulfilling it.”
The Ketziot jail seen on September 13, 2022. (Nati Shohat/Flash90)
On Friday, the ultranationalist minister steered that Israel can be higher off throwing the flotilla members in jail for a number of months fairly than instantly deporting them again to their dwelling nations.
Safety prisoners — these incarcerated for offenses that deliberately hurt nationwide safety — are housed individually from legal prisoners and will not be eligible for lots of the advantages obtainable to the overall jail inhabitants. The time period is a catch-all time period utilized to detainees, convicted prisoners and terrorists, and administrative detainees who’re held with out prices for prolonged durations, with out trial.
Ben Gvir has constantly pushed for harsher jail circumstances for Palestinian safety prisoners, and after the outbreak of battle in 2023, he declared a “state of emergency” in prisons, which allowed him to introduce measures to cut back the dwelling house per inmate, amongst different reductions in dwelling circumstances.
Palestinian prisoners have repeatedly complained of being held in dire circumstances. Final month, the Excessive Court docket of Justice dominated that the state, together with the IPS, which Ben Gvir has authority over, had failed to meet its authorized obligations to adequately feed Palestinian safety prisoners, and ordered it to take steps to offer such prisoners with sufficient meals “to allow a fundamental existence.”
The Sumud flotilla, which set sail in late August, marked the most recent try by activists to problem Israel’s years-long naval blockade of Gaza.
Members of the group of ships of the International Sumud Flotilla to Gaza are seen moored on the small island of Koufonisi, south of the island of Crete, on September 26, 2025. (Photograph by Eleftherios ELIS / AFP)
Related makes an attempt had been intercepted in June and July, amid spiking worldwide anger at Israel over the humanitarian disaster within the Strip. Israeli officers have denounced the Sumud and different missions as pro-Hamas media stunts.
In an August report that Israel has rejected, the UN declared a famine in elements of northern Gaza. Israel, which blocked the entry of help into Gaza for almost three months till Might, has accused Hamas of systematically looting help coming into the Strip because the battle there was sparked when the Palestinian terror group invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.
In the meantime, a brand new nine-boat flotilla organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition can be anticipated to strategy Gaza quickly and be intercepted by the Israeli Navy. The mission, mentioned to incorporate about 100 activists on one of many boats, set sail from Italy a couple of week in the past and was approaching the coast of Egypt’s Alexandria, its live-tracker confirmed Saturday.
Nurit Yohanan contributed to this report.
