“I can’t imagine what they’ve done — and continue to do — to the Palestinians under their complete control.”
GAZA — Days after a Freedom Flotilla participant said that the Israelis raped her after abducting her from one of the ships last fall, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition revealed in a statement on Friday that “multiple journalists and activists from the flotilla have now come forward with accounts of sexual violence, including rape, committed while they were held in Israeli custody.”
Late last month, German journalist Anne Liedtke said that the Israelis raped her while she was being transferred between prisons after everyone on her flotilla vessel, Conscience — which had dozens of journalists and medics on board — was abducted by Israeli troops. “We were transferred from one prison to another, and during the strip searches, I was raped,” she revealed.
Liedtke’s account marked the first time a flotilla participant alleged rape against the Israelis. However, her admission appears to have opened a floodgate of confessions.
“The FFC condemns the rape and sexual assault of flotilla participants by Israeli police and prison officials following Israel’s most recent unlawful attack on civilian vessels and the forcible detention of civilians from international waters,” the Freedom Flotilla Coalition said in a statement it published on Telegram on Friday. “Multiple journalists and activists from the flotilla have now come forward with accounts of sexual violence, including rape, committed while they were held in Israeli custody.”
In a separate statement that it published on its website, the coalition revealed that two more activists had come forward alleging rape against the Israelis. “Italian journalist Vincenzo Fullone, who was also aboard the Conscience, was subjected to repeated sexual violations amounting to rape while unlawfully detained, as was Australian activist Surya McEwen,” the statement said.
The FFC published the testimonies of the three participants who were raped by the Israelis:
Anna: “After I was kidnapped by Israeli forces, I was subjected to repeated physical and sexual abuse. During a forced strip search, I was raped by Israeli female guards. I am coming forward not for myself, but for all the women who have endured sexual violence and sexual torture in Israeli prisons—for those who did not survive these attacks, for those who are experiencing this abuse now, and for those who cannot speak about it.”
Vincenzo: “On three separate occasions, I was ordered to enter a small, specially arranged room where I was completely stripped and subjected to invasive and painful anal searches. I remained silent each time to avoid provoking further violence and to deny the guards the satisfaction of my suffering. During the third search, the pain became unbearable and was compounded by mockery, verbal abuse—including the words, ‘Don’t you like it, Hamas whore?’—and the photographing of my body. I am still unable to find peace because if they were willing to do this to me, I can’t imagine what they’ve done – and continue to do – to the Palestinians under their complete control.”
Surya: “I was stripped naked and sexually assaulted by Israeli officers while being held hostage. One held a gun to my head, angrily threatening that he would kill me, while the other yanked and pulled on my genitals, perversely and almost gleefully. While there is a psychic cost to this experience, I absolutely refuse to feel shamed, lessened, or stained by it, as these all belong solely to the perpetrators. This small taste of the sadism that Zionist colonisers inflict en masse on Palestinians has not weakened my commitment, but rather strengthened my resolve to work toward liberation.”
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition statement went on to highlight the copious documentation of the Israelis unleashing sexual violence, including rape, upon Palestinians whom they have abducted from Gaza and the West Bank and hauled up in their notorious rape-and-torture dungeons over the last couple of years.
It highlighted the November Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) report, which published four harrowing testimonies from Palestinians abducted from Gaza during the course of the ongoing Israeli genocide in the besieged enclave.
The report revealed the rape of four anonymous individuals: a 42-year-old woman, a 35-year-old man, a 41-year-old man, and an 18-year-old man. All four revealed horrific rape with bottles, wooden sticks, and dogs, and by Israeli troops.
PCHR has appealed for justice for the victims, but Palestinians do not receive justice in the occupation’s kangaroo courts. They are only dehumanised, abused, and killed.
The FFC statement also referred to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) report from March last year. The 49-page report titled More than a human can bear, revealed Israel’s systematic use of sexual, reproductive, and other forms of gender-based violence since October 7, 2023.
It revealed in great detail the total dehumanisation of the Palestinians by the Israelis, and how they have employed every possible form of sexual abuse to break them down.
The coalition put the rape of its activists in this larger context of Israeli impunity, of which Palestinians continue to be the principal victims.
“The horrific assault on flotilla volunteers must be understood in the broader context of an entrenched system of violence in which Israeli soldiers, police, and prison guards have long operated with impunity,” the statement added. “Sexual violence, including rape, gang-rape, humiliating strip searches, and other forms of sexual torture, has been repeatedly committed against Palestinians in Israeli custody and documented by Israeli, Palestinian, and international human rights organizations.”
In conclusion, the coalition appeals to the “United Nations and its member states to demand unfettered access to detention facilities and an independent international inquiry into sexual violence by Israeli forces. It also asks the “International Criminal Court to urgently investigate all allegations of sexual violence and torture in Israeli detention.”
And lastly, it makes an appeal to the “Global civil society, and particularly media institutions, to break the silence on abuses against Palestinians and international activists alike, and to demand an end to systems of violence that thrive on impunity.”
A mountain of testimonies has been collected from Palestinians and published across several reports by multiple local and international organisations, especially since the start of the Gaza genocide on October 7.
However, none of these has made any difference to Israeli behaviour. No UN body has made any attempt to interrogate the Israelis or hold the culprits to account, despite the genocidaires openly boasting about the dehumanising treatment of the Palestinians, and sealing it with the genocidal state’s imprimatur.
Moreover, a vast majority of Israelis have shown their full support for raping Palestinians. When a group of Israeli soldiers were taken in for questioning for violently raping a Palestinian — an act caught on camera — Israelis rioted to get the rapists released. For several days afterwards, they went to protests across Israel to assert their “right to rape” Palestinians. A staggering 65 percent of Israeli Jews supported gang raping Palestinians.
In the two weeks since Liedtke revealed her rape at the hands of the Israelis, the German state — which has enthusiastically participated in the Israeli barbarism in Gaza, with money, weapons, and diplomatic support — has not so much as made a statement in her support or asked the Israelis to carry out a perfunctory enquiry into her claims.
In the time since Fullone’s and McEwen’s statements were published by the FFC, the Italian and Australian governments — which have also been all in on the Israeli genocide — have kept silent.
While the Palestinians have had no recourse to justice — neither in the occupation’s kangaroo courts nor in international forums — the last 27 months, in particular, have made it abundantly clear that even Western citizens standing for justice for the Palestinians will face the same fate as the Palestinians themselves.
