Freed Spanish activists say Israel treated them ‘like animals’ in detention: Video
Twenty-one Spanish citizens detained by Israel while attempting to sail humanitarian aid to Gaza have returned to Madrid.
The activists were welcomed at the airport on Sunday, October 5, by relatives, journalists and supporters waving Palestinian flags and chanting for Palestine’s freedom.
On arrival, several recounted what they described as degrading treatment in Israeli custody.
”There has been humiliating and inhumane treatment throughout. We have been treated like animals,” one activist said.
“When we were shouting and asking for insulin for one of the people, a 75-year-old comrade who had been asking for insulin for three days, one of the soldiers said they didn’t have doctors for animals in prison,” he added. “Another Mexican colleague, who was asking for medicine for her heart condition, said it was urgent, and he said it would only be urgent when her heart stopped, according to another of the people who was there.”
Others expressed relief but also worry about what they described as a continuing genocide in Gaza.
“I am free and I am happy to be free, but my friends are still imprisoned in Israel, and Palestine is still not free. So all we can do is wait until everyone is free, until the genocide is stopped and Palestine is free,” an activist said.
The activists were part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, a fleet of vessels attempting to break Israel’s maritime blockade of Gaza. None of the ships reached the enclave, with the closest being a vessel that had entered Gaza’s territorial waters but was intercepted by Israeli forces minutes away from the shore.
Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said he was “proud that flotilla activists are being treated as terrorists,” adding, “Anyone who supports terrorism is a terrorist and deserves the same conditions applied to terrorists.”
Supporters of the flotilla say the mission was peaceful and humanitarian, intended to deliver aid and highlight the ongoing blockade of Gaza.
Footage spread by Israel-linked actors claimed no aid was on board the intercepted ships, an allegation Global Sumud Flotilla organisers have vehemently dismissed as “verifiably false” and a “systematic smear campaign.”
For its part, Israel has denounced the Spaniards’ inhumane treatment allegations as “fake news.”
“As we said, Israel is keen to have all the participants of this provocation deported as quickly as possible, but some of them deliberately chose to prolong the legal deportation process, preferring to linger in Israel,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote on social media.
“All the legal rights of the participants in this PR stunt are fully upheld,” it continued. “Don’t believe the fake news they are spreading.”
While the 21 Spaniards are now home, hundreds of other activists from around the world remain in Israeli custody.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
