Israel forces Global Sumud Flotilla activists to kneel, zip-tied for hours after attack, says rights group

The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, Adalah, said on Friday that Global Sumud Flotilla participants were forced to kneel with their hands zip-tied for at least five hours, denouncing the treatment as part of Israel’s unlawful detention practices following the flotilla’s interception in international waters.

In a statement, Adalah confirmed its attorneys met with the detainees over the past 24 hours, though some were processed without legal consultation after Israeli police initially blocked lawyer access. Hearings before Israeli immigration authorities are now underway.

The group described the entire process as “unlawful from start to finish,” stressing that the interception itself amounted to abduction in international waters and violated international law.

It said Israel’s justification of its actions 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.”

According to testimonies collected by Adalah lawyers, flotilla participants were forced to kneel with their hands zip-tied for at least five hours after chanting “Free Palestine.”

They were denied access to water, bathrooms, and medications and systematically deprived of legal representation. Several reported being violently woken whenever they tried to sleep.

Adalah added 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 called a “degrading display of control.”

After initial interrogations at Ashdod, detainees were transferred to the Ktzi’ot prison in the Naqab (Negev), described by rights groups as one of Israel’s most notorious prisons, where tribunal hearings began without legal teams present.

Adalah lawyers are now attending the hearings, reviewing detention orders, and continuing prison visits.

The group emphasized it is pursuing legal measures to ensure that “every single participant is accounted for” and demanded their immediate release from “unlawful detention,” along with the return of their confiscated personal belongings and humanitarian aid supplies.

- One of Israel’s most notorious detention facilities

Israel is holding Global Sumud Flotilla activists in the Negev prison of southern Israel, one of its worst detention facilities, the Palestinian Prisoners Society said.

In a statement, the club 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 club 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 attacked and seized vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla on Thursday and detained more than 470 activists from over 50 countries. The flotilla had been attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and challenge Israel’s blockade of the enclave.

Israel has maintained 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, and rendered it all but uninhabitable, with the blockade also pushing Gaza to a state of famine, with medicine and medical supplies in short supply.