JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s national security minister drew a sharp rebuke from his boss and triggered a backlash abroad on Wednesday, after he released videos taunting and telling detained activists from a flotilla that tried to get past the Israeli blockade of Gaza that they should be imprisoned for a very long time.<\/p>\n
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said although Israel has every right to stop \u201cprovocative flotillas of Hamas terrorist supporters,\u201d the way that National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir dealt with the flotilla activists \u201cis not in line with Israel\u2019s values and norms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir on Wednesday released the videos of himself walking among some of the approximately 430 detainees, after their arrival on navy ships. One video shows activists with their hands tied behind their backs kneeling with their heads touching the floor inside what appears to be a makeshift detention area at Ashdod port and on the deck of a ship.<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir waved a large Israeli flag and told the detainees: \u201cWelcome to Israel, we are the landlords.\u201d One handcuffed activist, who was shown in the video shouting \u201cFree Palestine\u201d as Ben-Gvir walked past, was immediately pushed to the ground by security personnel.<\/p>\n
In a second video, Ben-Gvir says the activists \u201ccame here all full of pride like big heroes. Look at them now,\u201d while appealing to Netanyahu to grant him permission to imprison them. <\/p>\n
Israel\u2019s leader calls for quick deportation of activists<\/p>\n
\u201cI say to Prime Minister Netanyahu, give them to me for a long, long time, give them to us for the terrorist prisons, that\u2019s what it should look like,\u201d Ben-Gvir said.<\/p>\n
Netanyahu said that he has given instructions that the activists be deported \u201cas soon as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir drew the ire of Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar, who publicly chastised his fellow minister on X, posting that \u201cyou knowingly caused harm to our State in this disgraceful display\u201d and that he had \u201cundone tremendous, professional and successful efforts made by so many people.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you are not the face of Israel,\u201d Sa\u2019ar wrote.<\/p>\n
Ben-Gvir shot back at Sa\u2019ar in the Israeli parliament, accusing him of \u201cbowing to the terrorists.\u201d He said that any Israeli apology to the activists would send a message of \u201cweakness,\u201d \u201csubmission\u201d and \u201csurrender.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel accused of humiliating activists<\/p>\n
An Israel-based legal advocacy group, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, or Adalah, accused Israeli authorities of \u201cemploying a criminal policy of abuse and humiliation against activists.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adalah said in a statement that this followed similar patterns of ill-treatment by Israeli authorities against activists in previous flotilla missions \u201cfor which Israel faced zero accountability.\u201d The group said that its lawyers and other volunteers were providing legal advice to activists at Ashdod and were demanding their immediate release.<\/p>\n
Flotilla organizers have said the activists from more than 40 different countries were \u201cbeing subjected to violent abuse after being illegally abducted at sea\u201d while attempting to bypass the Gaza blockade.<\/p>\n
Italy strongly condemned the detained activists\u2019 treatment as a violation of human dignity and called the images involving Ben-Gvir \u201cunacceptable.\u201d Italy\u2019s Foreign Ministry said that it would summon Israel\u2019s ambassador to seek formal clarification over the incident.<\/p>\n
Both Turkey and Greece also condemned the activists\u2019 treatment. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the behavior \u201copenly demonstrated to the world the violent and barbaric mindset\u201d of Israel\u2019s government. The Greek Foreign Ministry called Ben-Gvir\u2019s actions \u201cunacceptable and entirely condemnable\u201d and that it had lodged a formal protest. <\/p>\n
Palestinian military group Hamas called out Ben-Gvir for the \u201cscenes of abuse and humiliation\u201d of the activists, describing it as an expression of Israel\u2019s \u201cmoral decadence and sadism.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel intercepts all remaining flotilla boats<\/p>\n
Israeli forces on Tuesday boarded the last of the flotilla boats that tried to challenge the blockade \u2014 the latest effort to highlight the grim conditions for nearly 2 million Palestinians in Gaza.<\/p>\n
Flotilla organizers claimed Israeli soldiers fired on five boats during the interdictions, causing some damage. Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry said that no live ammunition was fired and that \u201cnonlethal means\u201d were aimed at the vessels as a warning, but without targeting or injuring protesters.<\/p>\n
Israeli forces had begun stopping the flotilla around 167 miles (268 kilometers) from the Gaza coastline, according to the flotilla\u2019s website. The vessels departed last week from Turkey.<\/p>\n
Israel has called the flotilla \u201ca PR stunt at the service of Hamas\u201d with no real intent to deliver aid to Gaza. The boats carry a symbolic amount of aid.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the Israeli navy stopped 41 boats from the flotilla in international waters off Cyprus and detained those on board.<\/p>\n
More than a dozen Irish nationals were aboard the flotilla, including Irish President Catherine Connolly\u2019s sister. Irish Prime Minister Miche\u00e1l Martin has called Israel\u2019s interception of the boats in international waters \u201cabsolutely unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The U.S. Treasury, however, imposed sanctions against several European activists aboard the flotilla, which U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called \u201cpro-terror.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gaza\u2019s coast blockaded for nearly two decades<\/p>\n
Israel has maintained a sea blockade of Gaza since Hamas took control of the territory in 2007. Israeli authorities intensified it after the Hamas-led militant attacks on southern Israel that killed around 1,200 people and saw more than 250 taken hostage on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n
Critics say the blockade amounts to collective punishment. Israel has said that the blockade is intended to prevent Hamas from arming itself. Egypt, which has the only border crossing with Gaza not controlled by Israel, has also greatly restricted movement in and out.<\/p>\n
Gaza\u2019s Health Ministry says that Israel\u2019s retaliatory offensive following the Oct. 7 attacks has killed more than 72,700 people. The ministry, part of Gaza\u2019s Hamas-run government, doesn\u2019t give a breakdown between civilians and combatants. The ministry is staffed by medical professionals who maintain and publish detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.<\/p>\n
Melzer and Hadjicostis write for the Associated Press. Hadjicostis reported from Nicosia, Cyprus. AP writers Areej Hazboun, Isaac Scharf and Ibrahim Hazboun in Jerusalem, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Giada Zampano in Rome, Andrew Wilks in Ankara, Turkey, and Derek Gatopoulos in Athens, Greece, contributed to this report. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JERUSALEM\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Israel\u2019s national security minister drew a sharp rebuke from his boss and triggered a backlash abroad on Wednesday,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123358,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[11007,9103,41906,41907,3748,496,1411,2427,37,17960,31864,18863,876,1176,1047],"class_list":["post-123357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-abuse","tag-ben-gvir","tag-flotilla-activist","tag-flotilla-boat","tag-foreign-ministry","tag-gaza","tag-hamas","tag-health-ministry","tag-israel","tag-israeli-authority","tag-israeli-blockade","tag-israeli-force","tag-netanyahu","tag-turkey","tag-video"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116607898480648312","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}