More Gaza flotilla activists allege mistreatment in Israeli detention
Italian journalist Lorenzo D’Agostino said that his belongings and money had been “stolen by the Israelis”.
Speaking to AP on his arrival at Turkiye’s Istanbul Airport after being deported from Israel on Saturday, he said the detained activists were also intimidated with dogs and by soldiers pointing the laser sights of their guns at prisoners “to scare us”.
Another activist, Paolo De Montis, reported experiencing “constant stress and humiliation” at the hands of the guards, who kept him in a prison van for hours with his hands secured by zip ties.
“You weren’t allowed to look them in the face, always had to keep your head down and when I did look up, a man … came and shook me and slapped me on the back of the head,” he told AP. “They forced us to stay on our knees for four hours.”
Separately, Malaysian sisters and singers-actors Heliza Helmi and Hazwani Helmi, also described “brutal” and “cruel” treatment when detained by Israeli forces.
“Can you imagine we drank from the toilet water? Some people were very, very sick, but they [the Israelis] said: ‘Are they dead? If not, then that’s not my problem,‘” Hazwani told Anadolu news agency after landing in Istanbul on Saturday. “They are very, very cruel people.”
Heliza also described going without food for days. “I ate on October 1. Today is my first meal,” she said on Saturday. “So for three days, I did not eat – only drank from the toilet.”
Deported activists from the flotilla had earlier spoken out about the mistreatment of Thunberg, one of the highest profile members of the mission, in particular, saying she had been “dragged on the ground”, “forced to kiss the Israeli flag”, and “used as propaganda”.
the abuse and humiliation Greta Thunberg is going through at the hands of the Israelis needs to be put in context with the dehumanising torture Palestinian prisoners are put through on the daily: the fact that darling Greta can be blindfolded and forced to crawl and kiss the Israeli flags - despite her international popularity and the protection her own government should guarantee her - is only possible because Israelis are allowed to beat, humiliate, starve and rape Palestinians to literal death without anyone stopping them.
“nothing is real atoms never touch each other youve never touched anything in your life” ok. well when i pet my dog he is soft and when he licks my hand it is wet and that is far more real to me than whatevers going on at an atomic level
what my atoms are doing is their fucking business man i’m busy trying to stop my dog from eating tissues directly out of the box
nuclei don’t touch, but the nucleus is not the core of reality. reality is made of electrons dancing. reality is made of bonds.
you pet your dog and the atoms that are you brush up against the atoms that are him, and the electrons that are you press into the electrons that are him, and both of them change their movement.
electrons of course are not really particles and do not really move.
you pet your dog and the electron-orbitals of your skin overlap with the electron-orbitals of his fur, and both are changed by the contact. you are not made of little motes floating alone in a void. you are a single unfathomable chord formed of a trillion vibrations, and so is he. and the note you play is changing at every moment by what you touch and how you breathe, and so is his. and atoms do not really have edges, and to touch is to interact, and when you put your hand on your dog the universe does not know that you are separate. the song expands to hold you both.
and when you put your hand on your dog the universe does not know that you are separate. the song expands to hold you both.
Since my home was destroyed, I’ve forgotten what safety feels like. I’ve been displaced nine times each time leaving behind what little remained, running from bombs, carrying nothing but fear and my child’s hand.
Now I live in a worn-out tent by the shores of Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. The sea is in front of me, but no peace in sight only hunger, sickness, and exhaustion.My husband has been missing for a long time… I don’t know where he is, or if I’ll ever see him again. Since his disappearance, I’ve had to face everything alone.
But I’m not truly alone…
My little son is the one who takes care of me now.
Yes — a child has become my only support. He comforts me when I cry, searches for scraps of food, and holds my hand when I fall.
We are living a nightmare
There’s no clean water. No food. No medicine.We are constantly sick from malnutrition. I have severe pain in my leg and need ongoing treatment, but there’s no way to get help.
I’m tired. My body is breaking.
My son a child is carrying a weight no child should carry. We are dying in slow motion… while the world looks away.
Please… don’t ignore this.
Don’t let my son grow up watching his mother starve and suffer.
Your donation isn’t just money it’s food, it’s medicine, it’s life.
Help us… before it’s too late.
Before the last bit of strength fades from my body…and the last bit of hope leaves my son’s eyes.
I saw this on Facebook. At first, I thought it was a good message about the harms of toxic masculinity and violent parenting.
But then, I checked other posts on that page, and they appear to be an MRA page (not the original artist, but the Facebook page that shared it). They’re posting this as a way to make women look bad, not as a way to accurately raise awareness of men’s struggles and find a solution to them, nor as an explanation of how harmful violent parenting is.
The women shown in each photo cannot be compared. The woman in the bottom photo wants to be treated like a person and wants him to be a person too. The woman in the top photo is using violence in order to enforce his conformity and subservience because she cares more about how he affects her image than about his well being. His childhood trauma then causes harm in his future relationships.
If you’re a man and you’ve experienced the top photo, you have to realize that the woman in the bottom photo is not your mother. She doesn’t want power over you like your mother does. She had nothing to do with how your mother treated you.
hey we need $15 for food and $41 for Dereks insulin that he MUST take to stay out of an er? URGENT he needs his insulin he’s been out of it FOUR DAYS im panicking his dosage of insulin was upped earlier this year. all my SSI went to ‘rent’ me, my siblings, sis gf, my mom, and 2 kids under 15, one that is also autistic, have to live with her. we have no body irl tha cares about us. i know times are hard & ppl aren’t rich please help us out I’m moms caretaker im an autistic lesbian who’s trying to keep us going. If u cant help dw if you can donate it’s very appreciated, but if you send hate? blocked
“They tied [Greta Thunberg’s] hands behind her back with the Israeli flag and made her walk. They didn’t give us clean water,they told us to drink from the toilets. We went nearly 40 hours without food. We saw mothers writing their children’s names on the walls. We actually experienced a little bit of what Palestinians go through.” - Activist Aycin Kantoglu
“They tortured Greta very severely before our eyes. […] They dragged little Greta by her hair before our eyes, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did everything imaginable to her, as a warning to others” - Journalist Ersin Celik
“Greta Thunberg, a brave woman, is only 22 years old. She was humiliated and wrapped in an Israeli flag and exhibited like a trophy.” -Journalist Lorenzo Agostino
“We stayed with reverse handcuffs for 5 hours. When we went to prison, they didn’t give us water, we had to drink water from the toilet.” - Author Said Ercan
“When we showed our reaction, they increased their violence even more. They tried to keep us under constant pressure in prison, waking us throughout the nightand changing our locations.” - Doctor Osman Cetinkaya
“They treated us like dogs. They left us hungry for three days. They didn’t give us water; we had to drink from the toilet … It was a terribly hot day, and we were all roasting.” - TV presenter Ikbal Gurpinar
Hundreds of peaceful activists from around 45 countries had their aid vessels blasted repeatedly with water canons and boarded by Israeli navy. Their communication systems were jammed and their ships were unlawfully seized and brought to Israel. The activists were then kidnapped and tortured in Israeli prisons against their will.
The quoted statements above are what we know from individual activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla.
The words of Aycin Kantoglu are important: “We actually experienced a little bit of what Palestinians go through.”
She is correct. They were denied clean water and medicine, kept awake, moved from place to place, starved, dehumanized, and had their bodies used to generate Israeli propaganda. They endured this terror for days. This is terrible. And this is only a glimpse of the terror that Palestinians have endured.
My friend Fadel (@fadel-danii) and his family have been denied access to clean water and starved for months. They have been forcibly displaced over and over again. They are kept awake with the sound of bombings and the insects and animals that get inside their damaged tent. He has struggled for two years to afford his medications.
While the activists detained for attempting to deliver aid are being released, Fadel and his family are trapped where they are without any assurance they will soon be somewhere safe.
They cannot simply return home at the end of this suffering and be treated for their injuries, because their house was destroyed, their healthcare infrastructure and doctors are constantly under attack, their land is being killed, their water polluted, and there is no clear end in sight.
Fadel started this fundraising campaign to afford travel to a hospital that could perform surgery to remove shrapnel that pierced his body during the bombing of his family’s home. His campaign was verified and shared by @90-ghost and @a-shade-of-blue, and was vetted by @gazavetters (#197 on the gazavetters spreadsheet). That was early summer of 2024. It has been over a year since then, and he has still not raised these funds.
His family has been displaced to southern Gaza and are struggling to afford water, food, medicine, and supplies to repair their damaged tent. Please donate what you can.
Can anyone bear my pain and what I am going through? I have been injured for more than 400 days and the metal fragments are still stuck in my body and I need an urgent surgery and everyone is ignoring me. Please wake up and look at me, please stand by me. I am in dire need of your donations for my surgery. Please do not ignore me.!!!!
I address the kind-hearted and the free souls among you…
The Israeli army targeted our area in Gaza where we live. We received threatening calls on our phones — threats to me, my wife, and our four young children.
We lived through terrifying hours as tanks approached and shelling surrounded us. We had no choice but to flee for our lives.
We escaped carrying our children in our arms, with nothing but the clothes on our backs, trying only to keep them safe from death and fear.
I started building a small shelter to protect them, but we couldn’t finish it.
We need just a little help — to buy tarpaulins, blankets, and wood — to make a simple shelter that shields us from the cold and the open sky.
So I turn to you, kind and compassionate people…
Your support is the only hope that can give my children safety and warmth, and save my family from the cold and fear.
You can support us through this link — every contribution, no matter how small, means life for us:
