Activist Saif Abu Kishk said, after being released by the Israeli occupation forces without charges being brought against him, that the world should not forget the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, following his return to Greece after being detained for participating in an aid flotilla that was heading to the Gaza Strip.
Abu Koshk, along with Brazilian activist Thiago Avila , were arrested by Israeli forces in international waters off Greece on the night of April 29-30, as part of a campaign targeting a ship belonging to the “Global Steadfastness Flotilla,” which included about 175 activists who were trying to break the Israeli blockade imposed on Gaza for many years and deliver humanitarian aid in light of the ongoing war.
Israel accuses the activists of having ties to Hamas without providing evidence. After their arrest, Abu Kishk and Avila were transferred to Israel for interrogation, where their detention was extended twice. According to their lawyer, they were subjected to physical and psychological abuse amounting to torture, and they reportedly went on a hunger strike to protest their detention conditions, according to the Common Dreams platform.
During that period, international calls for their release were issued by the United Nations, as well as by Brazil and Spain. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned their detention, calling it a “serious violation of international law.”
Upon arriving in Greece after his release, Abu Kishk—who holds Spanish-Swedish citizenship and is of Palestinian origin—said: “I left behind thousands of Palestinian prisoners, children, women, and men. I am certain that what I endured is nothing compared to what they suffer, from testimonies of torture and daily violations. We must continue to mobilize. We cannot forget the Palestinian prisoners.”
As for Avila, he left via Egypt en route to Brazil, and is expected to arrive in São Paulo. He had lost his mother during his detention in Israel.
Accusations of a political campaign
In a statement, the “Steadfastness Flotilla” considered the release of the activists a “victory” against Israel’s attempts to criminalize the international solidarity movement with Palestine and accuse it of terrorism.
The statement said that their release without charges “exposes the Israeli accusations as politically motivated, aimed at justifying violence against civilians involved in the flotilla, and suppressing the growing global solidarity against the policies of occupation and settler-colonial violence.”
But the statement also stressed that the activists’ case is only a small part of a broader reality, saying that “more than 10,000 Palestinians are still in Israeli prisons, subjected to starvation, torture, medical neglect, isolation and various violations without any international accountability.”
Calls to broaden solidarity
For its part, the “Samidoun” movement called for transforming the mobilization for the release of activists into a broader movement that includes all Palestinian and Arab prisoners, stressing that “the struggle for the freedom of prisoners must expand and not stop at individual cases, but includes everyone who is detained in Israeli prisons and imperialist prisons around the world.”
