More than 430 activists from countries around the world were in custody in Israel after they were detained at sea while making the latest in a string of attempts to break the blockade of the Palestinian territory.
Israel’s far-right national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir sparked condemnation on Wednesday by posting a video showing the detained activists with their hands tied and foreheads on the ground.
Captioned “Welcome to Israel”, the footage showed Ben Gvir heckling and waving an Israeli flag among the detained activists.
In the latest diplomatic backlash, Italian foreign minister Antonio Tajani said he had asked the EU to sanction Ben Gvir “for the unacceptable acts committed against the flotilla”.
The UK announced it had summoned Israel’s most senior diplomat in Britain following “the inflammatory video”.
On Thursday, the legal centre representing the activists said the flotilla members were “en route for deportation” from Ramon Airport in Israel’s far south.
“The majority of the participants are being transferred to Ramon Airport to be flown out of the country,” Adalah said in a statement, adding that the activists had been held at Israel’s Ktziot prison, in the Negev Desert near Gaza.
Turkey said it was sending planes to Israel to “bring our citizens and participants from third countries to Turkey via special charter flights we will organise today”.
Foreign ministry sources said “three flights” with a capacity for “more than 400 passengers” were being sent to Ramon airport.
Around 50 vessels under the Global Sumud Flotilla set sail from Turkey last week in the latest attempt by activists to breach Israel’s blockade of Gaza after Israeli forces intercepted a previous convoy last month.
‘They kicked us’
Adalah said one of the flotilla participants who holds Israeli citizenship had a court hearing Thursday, and faced “absurd” charges.
“Israeli authorities are holding her under unfounded and contradictory accusations of ‘illegal entry into Israel’, ‘unlawful stay’, and for an attempt to break the blockade on Gaza,” Adalah said.
Adalah’s legal director Suhad Bishara told AFP Wednesday that the group’s lawyers had been able to give legal counsel to “many” of the hundreds of activists, though she added that others had faced court hearings without legal assistance.
“We know of at least two participants who were hospitalised… both of them were shot by rubber bullets,” Bishara said, adding that others said they feared they had broken ribs.
Alessandro Mantovani, an Italian journalist detained with the flotilla activists and deported before the others, told reporters at Rome’s Fiumicino airport Thursday that he and others had been “taken to Ben Gurion airport in handcuffs and with chains on our feet and put on a flight to Athens”.
“They beat us up. They kicked us and punched us and shouted ‘Welcome to Israel’,” he said of his treatment by Israeli security forces.
Dario Carotenuto, an Italian MP who was also detained and deported, said: “It was really tough… They called us by number… with rifles pointed at us… I think those were the longest seconds in my life.”
The video posted by Ben Gvir sparked resounding condemnation by governments around the world, from Italy to Spain and Australia to Canada.
He was also criticised at home by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and foreign minister Gideon Saar, as well as by US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.
Francesca Albanese, an outspoken UN expert on the Palestinian territories, called on Italy, where she is from, to take action.
“Words do not suffice: let Italy stop opposing the suspension” of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, she wrote on X.
Fragile truce
Israel controls all entry points into Gaza, which has been under blockade since 2007.
Since the start of the Gaza war, sparked by Hamas’s Oct 7, 2023 attack on Israel, the territory has suffered severe shortages of food, medicine and other essential supplies, with Israel at times halting aid deliveries entirely.
A previous flotilla was intercepted last month in international waters off Greece, with most activists expelled to Europe.
Two were brought to Israel, detained for several days and then deported.