4 Oct 2025 – Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir arrived at the port of Ashdod on October 2 as if staging a scene carefully designed for public humiliation. In front of cameras and microphones, he stood before dozens of international activists seated on the ground, exhausted after the long voyage and hours of interrogation, and shouted at them indiscriminately: “terrorists.” The gesture was not isolated: it was a display of power and contempt that evoked for much of the world the image of a Nazi officer receiving a trainload of prisoners arriving at Auschwitz. The difference is that here, in the twenty-first century, the perpetrators themselves chose to disseminate the scene, fully aware of its symbolic impact, confident in the impunity that shields them.
From that port began the transfer of more than four hundred activists kidnapped in international waters toward an equally infamous destination: Ketziot prison, in the heart of the Negev desert. This facility is not new to reports by international bodies. Thousands of Palestinian prisoners have been held there, and its name appears repeatedly in human rights organizations’ reports for inhumane conditions, overcrowding, psychological torture, and systematic medical neglect. Now, that same site holds doctors, journalists, parliamentarians, and human rights defenders from more than forty countries who took part in the flotilla.
Accounts circulating since the first day of their capture converge on a central point: interrogations lasted more than fifteen hours, without offering detainees water or food. It was punishment disguised as procedure, a way to break the resistance of those who dared to challenge the blockade and deliver humanitarian aid directly to Gaza. Nevertheless, several of the kidnapped —and that is the only accurate term, since their violent capture in international waters does not correspond to any legitimate legal procedure— are believed to have resisted, refusing to sign deportation documents that would amount to self-incrimination. Others, pressured by exhaustion and isolation, reportedly signed in exchange for the promise of a swift expulsion. Israel remains silent: it has not yet provided a complete list of those transferred to Ketziot, nor has it clarified under what legal status they are being held.
What has emerged, already reported by Arab and European media and solidarity organizations, is that inside the prison a group of the kidnapped have begun a hunger strike. The measure, desperate yet consistent with the flotilla’s spirit of resistance, recalls the historic fasts of political prisoners confronting a power intent on breaking them. The hunger strike echoes the voyage itself: a body willing to embrace extreme fragility in order to assert the dignity that is being stripped away.
Ketziot, like Auschwitz in the inevitable parallel it evokes, thus becomes both symbol and witness. There, among the dunes and the walls, the same eternal question repeats itself: what is the world doing while hundreds of human beings are humiliated, deprived of their most basic rights, and turned into political hostages? The answer, once again, seems to be complicit silence.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ADALAH UPDATE ON THE GSF PARTICIPANTS KIDNAPPED AND DETAINED
October 3, 2025
This statement was originally published on Adalah’s WhatsApp channel.
Over the past 24 hours, Adalah’s lawyers met with 331 participants of the Global Sumud Flotilla at the port of Ashdod, where they are facing hearings before Israeli immigration authorities. Several participants were processed without Adalah’s legal counsel, as access to our lawyers was initially denied. This process took place after the flotilla was forcibly towed following illegal interceptions in international waters, where dozens of boats were seized in their mission to break the illegal siege of Gaza amidst ongoing genocide, mass atrocities, and famine.
The flotilla participants are in relatively stable condition, and Adalah continues to closely monitor their situation.
After their abduction in international waters, the participants were forced to kneel with their hands bound with zip ties for at least five hours, after some of them chanted slogans in support of Palestine’s liberation. During the lawyers’ visits, Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, made an appearance in what was clearly an act of humiliation and intimidation. The flotilla participants were filmed and exploited in a degrading display of control. This demonstration of humiliation took place alongside the smear campaign by Israeli officials, who falsely labeled flotilla members as “terrorists” in an attempt to discredit their peaceful mission and legitimize the repressive tactics used against them.
The entire process is illegal from beginning to end. The interception itself violated international law, amounting to an abduction in international waters. Israel’s attempt to justify these actions through the enforcement of its blockade does not stand: the blockade itself is illegal, constitutes collective punishment, and serves as a central tool of the ongoing genocide, including the deliberate use of hunger as a method of war.
The rights of the participants were systematically violated throughout this process. In addition to being denied access to water, bathrooms, and medication, they were denied access to lawyers, which violated their fundamental rights to due process, an impartial trial, and legal representation. Yesterday, while the whereabouts of the flotilla volunteers remained unknown, the lawyers were forced to wait about nine hours outside the port of Ashdod and were not informed when Israeli immigration authorities began to process and hold hearings. They only learned of these illegal proceedings after the detainees themselves called them directly.
Despite repeated denials of entry by Israeli police, Adalah’s lawyers finally managed to access the port and provide legal assistance to the 331 participants. Several participants reported having been subjected to assaults, threats, and harassment, including being violently awakened every time they attempted to sleep.
Subsequently, the authorities transferred the participants from Ashdod to Ktzi’ot prison in the Negev and began judicial hearings without informing the legal team, proceeding with no legal representation whatsoever. Adalah’s lawyers are now present at these judicial hearings, where detention orders are being reviewed.
Adalah is taking legal measures to ensure that each and every participant is accounted for, while continuing to carry out prison visits. Adalah also demands their immediate release from illegal detention and the return of their personal belongings and humanitarian aid supplies.
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