Ben Gvir posted the footage which has drawn fierce criticism from numerous governments – Copyright AFP Ilia YEFIMOVICH<\/p>\n
Italy, Ireland and Spain have called on the EU to sanction Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, who posted a video showing detained activists from a Gaza-bound flotilla forced to their knees with hands bound.<\/p>\n
A global outcry erupted after Israeli minister Itamar Ben Gvir published a video Wednesday showing the heavy-handed treatment of foreign activists from the flotilla who were detained at sea by Israel and awaiting deportation at the southern port of Ashdod.<\/p>\n
In the video, dozens of activists are seen forced to kneel with their foreheads to the ground and their hands tied.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez called the treatment of the activists \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tajani wrote on X Thursday that he had requested sanctions against the minister for \u201cseizing the activists in international waters and subjecting them to harassment and humiliation, in violation of the most basic human rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
His comment came a day after Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called the activists\u2019 treatment \u201cintolerable\u201d and demanded an apology by Israel.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Sanchez wrote on X the \u201cimages of Israeli Minister Ben Gvir humiliating members of the international flotilla in support of Gaza are unacceptable. We will not tolerate anyone mistreating our citizens\u201d.<\/p>\n
In Ireland, a leaked letter revealed Prime Minister Micheal Martin urging the EU chief for \u201cfurther action\u201d against Israel over the activists\u2019 treatment.<\/p>\n
In the letter to European Council President Antonio Costa that was leaked to AFP Thursday by an unnamed government source, Martin condemned Israel\u2019s \u201cshocking treatment of EU citizens\u201d and \u201cunacceptable behaviour\u201d by Ben Gvir.<\/p>\n
The letter dated Wednesday called for a discussion about the matter at the next European Council meeting in June.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the very least, this must include the banning of products from Israeli settlements and the suspension of parts if not all of the EU\u2019s Association Agreement with Israel,\u201d Martin said.<\/p>\n
That June 2000 agreement \u2014 a treaty that sets a framework for cooperation \u2014 includes a clause requiring respect for human rights.<\/p>\n
Sanchez called sanctions against Ben Gvir a \u201cmatter of urgency\u201d for Brussels, saying that he had already in September announced a ban on the minister entering Spain.<\/p>\n
Also Thursday, the United Kingdom announced it had summoned Israel\u2019s most senior diplomat in Britain following \u201cthe inflammatory video\u201d.<\/p>\n
The video, which was captioned \u201cWelcome to Israel\u201d, also showed Ben Gvir heckling the activists while waving an Israeli flag.<\/p>\n
The activists had departed from Turkey last week on around 50 vessels under the Global Sumud Flotilla.<\/p>\n
It was the latest attempt by activists to breach Israel\u2019s blockade of Gaza, after Israeli forces intercepted a previous convoy last month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Gvir posted the footage which has drawn fierce criticism from numerous governments – Copyright AFP Ilia YEFIMOVICH…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49263,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[505,39,257,6312,574,3240,145,172,170,108,945],"class_list":["post-49262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-european-council","tag-conflict","tag-eu","tag-european-council","tag-flotilla","tag-gaza","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-italy","tag-palestinians","tag-spain","tag-turkey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49263"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}