On 18 May, hundreds of activists sailing to Gaza as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla were abducted and imprisoned by Israel. The activists were in international waters when they were intercepted. Inside Israel’s notorious Ketziot prison, activists were beaten, forced into stress positions and shot with rubber bullets. Reports say some activists faced electric shocks and sexual abuse. This sort of brutality is standard treatment for Palestinians in Israeli prisons—and often much worse. Currently, 10,000 Palestinians are detained in Israeli jails, including thousands who face imprisonment without charge or trial.
Video footage of Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting the imprisoned flotilla activists brought attention to the violence and barbarity that run rife through Israeli politics. Neve O’Connor, a Melbourne student and support worker, was one of eleven Australian activists imprisoned by Israel. She spoke to Red Flag about the experience.
How did Israel intercept the flotilla?
The first time they intercepted our ships, it was at night with a lot of secrecy, whereas this one was in broad daylight. It was a flagrant violation of international and maritime law, done and conducted in the middle of the day. You could see every single one of the soldiers heavily adorned with weaponry. Guns, flashbangs, handguns, tasers, every single weapon you could imagine. It was crazy how heavily armed they were, given that we were on a nonviolent mission.
The moment you set foot onto those Israeli prison boats, you are subjected to violence and deprivation of humanitarian rights. It is a language that Israel is well versed in, and it seems that violence is the only way they can communicate. I saw people being shot within five metres from where I was standing. There were beanbag pouches filled with rubber shrapnel fired directly into people’s legs; they threatened us with water cannons. They denied us access to water, food and protection from the elements. On the first kidnapping, we had mattresses but no blankets. On the second kidnapping, we had no blankets, no mattresses. We were crammed into these shipping containers so tightly that if one person rolled over, everyone had to roll over. It was a constant barrage of violence and brutality.
Millions of people have seen the videos of Itamar Ben-Gvir overseeing the abuse of imprisoned flotilla activists. What did you experience while being detained?
When we were processed from the prison boats to the immigration yard, we were put in stress positions for over an hour. It’s difficult to fully articulate just how painful and all-encompassingly uncomfortable this is, particularly for those of us who had our hands zip-tied behind our backs. The point of putting people in the position is to put them under stress: you respond immediately. You get nauseous, you’re on the precipice of passing out. Some people reported seeing stars because they were in so much pain. People around us were crying out for help.
One of the most harrowing moments of my entire mission was when we were sitting in these stress positions in the immigration tent. They would play the Israeli national anthem on repeat on a loop. People were screaming from the amount of pain they were in, but also because Israeli immigration officers would just start descending on people and they would beat them up and brutalise them even further. You never knew which one of your friends was about to be taken out to be shot or taken out of the prison yard to be beaten in a shipping container. You could hear the screams of your friends intermingling with the national anthem, and the soldiers, laughing, were turning it up and giggling along. They were so joyful in the face of such callous cruelty that they were inflicting.
Because each step of our mission was so imbued with the hope of Palestinian liberation, though, even when I was going through one of the most horrible things of my life, you just had to sit there and reflect and think of how much pain Palestinians would’ve had to endure in that moment. For them, there are no cameras, there is no protection from a government, and there is no embassy flying out to meet them in a couple of days. They have to withstand the full brunt of Israel’s violence on their own.
What do you think about the way the Australian government responded?
The way that Labor has responded is so typical of the government. Totally weak-willed. I was not shocked that [Prime Minister] Albanese didn’t speak out, and I was not surprised at his and [Foreign Minister] Wong’s silence because this has been their legacy. This has been the stain they have left on Australia’s history. They have actively engaged with, benefited from and supported a genocide once again. They’ve shown total apathy to the Palestinians facing genocide. It’s disgustingly disappointing. I’m so enraged by the fact that we, as ordinary civilians, are forced to sail and forced to put ourselves in the line of fire, at immense personal risk, while our government is too weak-willed to stand up and oppose a genocide.
It would appear there is no act heinous enough, there is no crime brutal enough, and there is no violence dominating enough for Australia to sanction Israel. If it wasn’t enough that Israel is actively complicit in genocide, our own government doesn’t even care when its own citizens are brutalised. We know the government is perfectly capable of sanctioning apartheid regimes: we did it in South Africa, and Australia currently has more than sixteen active sanctions against different countries acting in violent ways. It shows that they are capable, but just not capable when it comes to Israel. It’s appalling and sickening, and I will continue to speak out against and hold Anthony Albanese accountable until he pays for the complicity in these crimes.
What motivated you to sail on the flotilla, and why do you think it matters that people keep fighting for Palestine?
The decision to join the mission was simultaneously one of the most complex I’ve made, but also the simplest. I decided to stand up, since our government is not. Our government is absolutely complicit and dismissive of those who are standing up for Palestine. So it was actually an easy decision to go. If there were a mission tomorrow, I’d go again. With immense trepidation, now knowing the violence of Israel firsthand, I would still go regardless because Palestine is still not free. Palestine is still not liberated from the tyranny of Israel’s abuse.
At the very crux of this issue, anyone with a semblance of humanity and compassion should be appalled by the brutalisation of Palestinian people and of occupied people everywhere. This mission was not just for the Palestinian people; it was for people all over the globe suffering under the tyranny of imperialism.
It matters to keep fighting because so many roads of abuse and tyranny lead back to Palestine. The fact is that Palestinians have shouldered the brunt of their own advocacy for generations, but the world is finally waking up and joining them in their mission for solidarity. That should be so inspiring to everyone. It was deeply inspiring for me. At the core of who we are, we should be morally affronted by the horrors of genocide. And we all have a right to stand up and say, this is not enough, this is not okay, and it will not be done in my name.
