{"id":22623,"date":"2026-06-06T17:45:40","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T17:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/22623\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T17:45:40","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T17:45:40","slug":"italy-appeals-for-release-of-hunger-striking-flotilla-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/22623\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy appeals for release of hunger-striking\u00a0Flotilla activists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n      Global Sumud Flotilla demanded immediate access for independent medical monitors and foreign consular staff and the immediate, unconditional release of all volunteers [GETTY]<\/p>\n<p>Italy appealed on Friday for the release of two Italian pro-Palestinian campaigners <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/gaza-aid-convoy-activists-held-libya-begin-hunger-strike\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">detained <\/a>in eastern Libya who, along with eight other activists, had been refusing food and water for four days.<\/p>\n<p>Israeli forces arrested 430 people on board 50 ships in international waters in May, to halt a flotilla of &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/news\/israeli-forces-storm-gaza-aid-flotilla-international-waters\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Global Sumud Flotilla<\/a>&#8221; volunteers trying to bring aid supplies to the Gaza Strip.<\/p>\n<p>The people held in Libya are part of a separate group of Flotilla activists who tried to reach the Palestinian enclave by land.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities in the eastern Libyan city of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/tag\/benghazi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Benghazi <\/a>were not immediately available for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Italian Consul Filippo Colombo has appealed to those authorities for the release of the two Italian nationals and requested permission to visit them, the foreign ministry said.<\/p>\n<p>Ten detainees are now in their fifth day of hunger strike in protest at their detention and mistreatment, Global Sumud Flotilla said in a statement on Thursday, adding that their health was rapidly deteriorating.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A dry hunger strike (refusing to drink as well as eat) is rapidly fatal; without immediate intervention, this humanitarian crisis will turn into a tragedy,&#8221; the Flotilla said.<\/p>\n<p>The organisation said the volunteers were being held in isolated, non-civilian prison complexes operated by the Libyan Interior Ministry, and were being given contradictory information and false promises of release.<\/p>\n<p>Global Sumud Flotilla demanded immediate access for independent medical monitors and foreign consular staff and the immediate, unconditional release of all volunteers.<\/p>\n<p>They have been held since 24 May, when the delegation approached Libyan authorities in the city of Sirte to negotiate the safe passage of a humanitarian convoy heading for Gaza.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, the group of 10 were arrested for immigration violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global Sumud Flotilla demanded immediate access for independent medical monitors and foreign consular staff and the immediate, unconditional&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22624,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[7481,5,2157,16026],"class_list":["post-22623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-italy","tag-gaza-flotilla","tag-italy","tag-libya","tag-pro-palestinian-activism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22623"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22623\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/italy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}