International activists deported from Israel after joining an intercepted Gaza aid flotilla have given further accounts of mistreatment by guards during their detention.
The latest claims made by participants in the Global Sumud Flotilla added to the growing scrutiny of Israel on Sunday for its treatment of the activists.
Some 450 participants in the flotilla were arrested between Wednesday and Friday as Israeli forces intercepted the boats, which were seeking to break a naval blockade of Gaza and deliver a symbolic amount of aid to Palestinians in the besieged territory.
Speaking at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport on his return on Sunday, Italian activist Cesare Tofani said, “We were treated terribly … From the army, we moved on to the police. There was harassment,” ANSA news agency reported.
Yassine Lafram, the president of the Union of Islamic Communities in Italy, who landed at Milan Malpensa Airport with the activists, told the Corriere della Sera newspaper: “They even treated us violently, pointing weapons at us, and this is absolutely unacceptable for us in a country that considers itself democratic.”
Italian journalist Saverio Tommasi, who landed at Fiumicino Airport late on Saturday, said Israeli soldiers had withheld medicines and treated the detained activists “like monkeys”, The Associated Press reported.
He said the Israeli guards mocked the detained activists – who included Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla Mandela, and several European lawmakers – in order to “demean, ridicule and laugh in situations where there is nothing to laugh about”.
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