Rights groups slam Israel's 'unlawful' detention of Global Sumud Flotilla activists
ISTANBUL
Israel's Ktzi’ot prison is seen here.
The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Adalah, on Friday accused Israeli authorities of subjecting Global Sumud Flotilla participants to harsh treatment, including being forced to kneel with hands zip-tied for at least five hours, as part of what it called unlawful detention practices after the flotilla's interception in international waters.
In a statement, Adalah said its attorneys had met with the detainees over the past 24 hours, although some were processed without legal consultation after Israeli police initially blocked access for lawyers.
Hearings before Israeli immigration authorities are currently underway.The group labeled the entire process as “unlawful from start to finish,” emphasizing that the interception amounted to abduction in international waters and violated international law.
It argued that Israel’s justification through enforcement of the Gaza blockade “cannot stand, as the blockade itself is illegal, constitutes collective punishment, and serves as a central tool of the ongoing genocide, including the deliberate use of starvation as a method of warfare.”
Testimonies gathered by Adalah lawyers revealed that flotilla participants were forced to kneel with their hands zip-tied for at least five hours after chanting “Free Palestine.”
They were denied water, bathrooms, and medications, and systematically deprived of legal representation. Several reported being violently woken whenever they tried to sleep.Adalah noted that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the port during the process “in an act of humiliation and intimidation,” with participants filmed in what the group described as a “degrading display of control.”
Following initial interrogations at Ashdod, detainees were moved to Ktzi’ot prison in the Naqab (Negev), which rights groups regard as one of Israel’s most notorious facilities, where tribunal hearings began without legal teams present.
Adalah lawyers are now attending the hearings, reviewing detention orders, and conducting ongoing prison visits.
The organization said it is taking legal steps to ensure “every single participant is accounted for” and called for their immediate release from “unlawful detention,” along with the return of confiscated personal belongings and humanitarian aid supplies.
Separately, the Palestinian Prisoners Society highlighted Ktzi’ot, also known as Negev prison, as one of Israel’s worst detention facilities holding the flotilla activists.
In a statement, the society explained that “the Negev prison, where the occupation authorities are holding the Flotilla activists, is one of the most notorious prisons, where hundreds of crimes and abuses against Palestinian prisoners and detainees have been documented.”
It added: “The Negev prison houses thousands of Palestinian detainees, including detainees from Gaza.”
The society pointed out that a number of these Palestinian detainees “were killed as a result of severe beatings and torture carried out by Israeli repression units.”
It stressed that “the crimes and atrocities committed by the Israeli prison system have exceeded all international laws and human rights norms, as Israeli prisons and camps have turned into arenas of extermination in various forms, due to the systematic crimes committed over the past two years.”
Israeli naval forces intercepted and seized vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla on Thursday, detaining more than 470 activists from over 50 countries. The flotilla aimed to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and challenge Israel’s blockade of the enclave.
Israel has imposed the blockade on Gaza, home to nearly 2.4 million people, for almost 18 years.Since October 2023, Israeli bombardments have killed nearly 66,300 Palestinians in the enclave, most of them women and children, rendering it all but uninhabitable. The blockade has also driven Gaza into famine, with shortages of medicine and medical supplies.
