{"id":27372,"date":"2026-05-30T00:25:12","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T00:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/27372\/"},"modified":"2026-05-30T00:25:12","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T00:25:12","slug":"france-asks-prosecutors-to-investigate-israels-treatment-of-gaza-flotilla-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/27372\/","title":{"rendered":"France asks prosecutors to investigate Israel’s treatment of Gaza flotilla activists"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS (AP) \u2014 France\u2019s government said Friday that it\u2019s asking prosecutors to investigate Israel\u2019s alleged violent mistreatment of activists from a flotilla to Gaza<\/a>, potentially opening a route for criminal proceedings.<\/p>\n

France had already announced an indefinite ban<\/a> from French territory of Israel\u2019s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, for what it called his \u201cunspeakable\u201d behavior toward flotilla activists while they were in Israeli detention, after they attempted to breach Israel\u2019s naval blockade of Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

French Foreign Minister Jean-No\u00ebl Barrot\u2019s decision to now ask French prosecutors to determine whether criminal charges might be warranted is an additional signal of Paris\u2019 displeasure.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Friday to public broadcaster France Inter, Barrot said he received a report from French diplomats in Turkey that \u201cdetailed sexual violence, exposure to cold, beatings and repeated humiliations of French nationals \u2014 all acts that could constitute criminal offenses.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI decided yesterday to refer the matter to the public prosecutor,\u201d he said. \u201cThis case is now in the hands of the justice system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under French criminal procedure law, prosecutors determine how to follow up on complaints and whether charges could be pursued.<\/p>\n

The Global Sumud Flotilla of 50 boats was intercepted<\/a> this month in international waters some 250 miles (400 kilometers) off the coast of Israel. The Israeli government subsequently released and deported<\/a> hundreds of the activists to Turkey. <\/p>\n

Activists accused Israeli forces of mistreatment in detention<\/a>, describing beatings, tasers and attack dogs. Israel denied mistreatment. <\/p>\n

Ben-Gvir sparked global outrage<\/a> after promoting a video of himself taunting detained activists.<\/p>\n

In a May 23 post announcing a ban on Ben-Gvir entering French territory, Barrot said: \u201cWe cannot tolerate that French nationals can be threatened, intimidated or brutalized in this way \u2014 all the more so by a public official.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PARIS (AP) \u2014 France\u2019s government said Friday that it\u2019s asking prosecutors to investigate Israel\u2019s alleged violent mistreatment of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[546,11868,5,349,83,3241,63,16344,1390,16191,1589,346,488,1595,90],"class_list":["post-27372","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-2024-2026-mideast-wars","tag-activism","tag-france","tag-france-government","tag-general-news","tag-indictments","tag-israel","tag-israel-government","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-itamar-ben-gvir","tag-national-security","tag-politics","tag-sexual-assault","tag-violence","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/france\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}