The Global Sumud Flotilla, the largest effort so far to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to Palestinians there, consisted of 52 boats and more than 400 volunteers from 41 countries. The boats were intercepted and boarded by the Israeli military in two waves in May, with flotilla crew members aboard the boats arrested and detained. Upon their release, most of the volunteers reported being subjected to torture and abuse, including some who said they were sexually assaulted and physically attacked, resulting in broken bones.
Two American flotilla crew members, Fredi Guevara and Liam Henrie, recently spoke about their experiences at the Palestine Museum in Woodbridge, Connecticut, reminding their audience that Palestinians suffer much worse treatment at the hands of Israel on a daily basis.
Guevara and Henrie are experienced sailors, both having learned their sailing skills aboard the Clearwater, the boat inspired by the late folk singer Pete Seeger that had campaigned to clean up the Hudson River since 1969. Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus attended the talk and brings us this excerpt of the pair’s account of their voyage and abduction and detention by the Israeli military.
FREDI GUEVARA: Liam and I both started out on the mission in Italy and we were both intercepted in that first round of interceptions off of the coast of Crete. We had over 50 boats, I think, at that point that were sailing from Barcelona and Italy. We were a part of the Italian fleet, the two of us on two separate boats. About 22 vessels were intercepted April 29th off of the coast of Crete in Greek search-and-rescue zone waters with the aid of the Greek government. A little over 170 of us civilians—humanitarians, doctors, sailors, a lot of humanitarians and activists—who were kidnapped in international waters, detained and brought aboard an Israeli naval vessel and were detained there for about two days before being transferred to Greek authorities in Crete.
LIAM HENRIE: Yeah. So Fredi and I were together in that first … We were not on the same boat, but were part of that initial interception, which again, it should be emphasized that it wasn’t just the Greeks were not nearly complacent. They were actually there. There were Greek naval vessels present. There was also a Greek plane flying overhead at the time and it took place in what you call the search-and-rescue zone. So it was the international waters and subject to laws under the UN Convention of Law of the Sea. Spent around 40 hours. And at that point there was a lot of confusion as everybody got back on their feet, but it was determined that a few days later that the fleet would keep going on, including the boats that had survived that initial interception. And because Fredi and I have the advantage of being experienced sailors, we were given a spot on a boat leaving from Greece or two boats leaving from Greece and were able to continue on with the mission, which eventually went to Marmaris, Turkey.
Words like “torture” have been used by the media. That is totally correct. Two of my crew members were tased in the face. People were brought on board the prison ship and basically had each individualized little run through a shipping container before being let out into the enclosure where people were held and essentially everyone during this point was subjected to violence. Yeah, there were on our boat, 35 confirmed fractures, possibly a few more broken bones. There were 11 definite cases of sexual assault. There were three cases of people being injected with unknown substances. I think it was five traumatic head injuries as well.
For more information, visit the Global Sumud Flotilla.
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