FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Demand our Governments Move Beyond Words

[May 21, 2026] The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) confirms that international volunteers abducted by Israeli forces during the violent hijacking of civilian vessels in international waters have now been released and deported. Two Korean nationals were deported to South Korea, one participant was deported to Egypt, two to Jordan, one Israeli citizen was released inside the country, and the remaining 422 participants were transferred to Istanbul aboard three Turkish Airlines flights arranged by the Turkish government.

While we are relieved that participants are no longer in Israeli custody, we reject any attempt to portray the abuse and degrading treatment witnessed by the world over recent days as isolated misconduct or the actions of extremist officials. The brutality broadcast across social media — including deliberate humiliation, threats, physical violence, degrading treatment, and openly dehumanizing rhetoric directed at unarmed civilians — is not an aberration. It is a manifestation of the same system of settler-colonial violence and impunity that Palestinians have endured for decades while being denied their most basic human rights.

Flotilla participants are currently undergoing medical examinations in Istanbul. Testimonies are still being collected, but we have already documented severe bruising, injuries consistent with broken ribs, and numerous reports of physical abuse. We have also received deeply disturbing accounts of sexual humiliation and degrading treatment carried out by Israeli forces. In one case, a participant was stripped naked and forced to run while under threat of physical violence.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition will work with participants to pursue legal action against Israeli officials for crimes including aggression, unlawful seizure and arbitrary detention, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, physical assault, psychological torture, and other violations of international law.

What flotilla participants experienced was only a small glimpse of the violence routinely inflicted upon Palestinians with far less international visibility and no protection. Nearly 10,000 Palestinians — including more than 350 children — remain imprisoned by Israel. Human rights organizations and former detainees have documented widespread torture, rape, sexual violence, starvation, medical neglect, and other grave abuses inside Israeli detention facilities. Over the past two years alone, at least 100 Palestinian detainees have reportedly died in Israeli custody due to torture, starvation, or denial of medical care.

For decades, Palestinians have endured killing, arbitrary detention, torture, forced displacement, home demolitions, land theft, siege, military assaults, starvation policies, and the systematic denial of their fundamental rights. International solidarity activists have likewise faced repeated attacks, arrest, deportation, and even death for standing alongside Palestinians. In 2025, volunteers who sailed on various flotilla missions were subjected to similar violence, humiliating treatment, and sexual assault. In 2010, Israeli forces murdered 10 of our colleagues aboard the vessel Mavi Marmara, sailing in the first Freedom Flotilla.

Attempts to frame the abuses of the last couple of days solely as the actions of Israeli Minister Itamar Ben Gvir or other individual officials are grossly misplaced, if not deliberately deceptive. This violence did not begin with Ben Gvir, nor does it depend on any single political figure. It is structural, institutionalized, and longstanding. Most importantly, it has been enabled and protected by governments that continue to shield Israel from accountability.

States that continue providing Israel with diplomatic cover, military aid, trade privileges, and political impunity despite decades of documented grave human rights violations bear direct responsibility for creating the conditions that have culminated in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Mainstream media institutions that employ selective language, dehumanizing narratives, and distorted framing also play a dangerous role in normalizing and legitimizing Israeli violence.

While we welcome public statements of concern and condemnation issued by governments in recent days, statements alone are not enough. The international community must move beyond rhetoric and take concrete measures to end Israel’s impunity, including by instituting a comprehensive arms embargo, suspending military and economic agreements, and imposing other sanctions.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition also reaffirms that Israeli violence will not deter us.

For nearly two decades, the flotilla movement has challenged not only the illegal blockade of Gaza, but also the international normalization of Palestinian dispossession and apartheid. Our mission has always been rooted in the belief that Palestinians deserve the same rights, freedom, dignity, safety, and protection afforded to all people.

*MEDIA UPDATE: All Unlawfully Detained Flotilla Activists Released from Ktziot Prison Ahead of Deportation*

Adalah has received official confirmation from the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) and state officials that all detained Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) and Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) activists have been released from the Ktziot detention facility and are currently en route to deportation. Adalah emphasizes that the entire operation, from the unlawful interception in international waters to the systemic torture, humiliation, and arbitrary detention of peaceful activists, constitutes a flagrant violation of international law.

The majority of the participants are being transferred to Ramon Airport to be flown out of the country. Adalah’s legal team is actively monitoring the transit process to ensure that all activists are safely and fully deported without further delay

Adalah Update:

Adalah attorneys, together with a team of volunteer lawyers, have just left Ashdod Port (Wednesday evening 20 May) after providing legal consultation to hundreds of unlawfully detained flotilla participants. Due to the severe access restrictions, the lawyers were not able to see all of the detained participants. Adalah can confirm that all of those detained have now passed through the Israeli immigration initial processing stage and almost all are being transferred to Ktziot prison. The legal team reports systemic violations of due process, and widespread physical and psychological abuse by Israeli authorities against the activists.

Our team received a large number of complaints of extreme violence, revealing a new pattern of physical abuse deliberately used by Israeli authorities. This violence resulted in severe, widespread injuries, including at least three individuals who were hospitalized and subsequently released. The lawyers documented dozens of participants with suspected broken ribs and resulting difficulty in breathing. Reports also indicated the frequent use of Tasers against participants, as well as injuries sustained from the use of rubber bullets during the interception of the flotilla boats and on the military boat to which they were transferred. The detained activists were subjected to extreme violence both on the vessels and during the transfer time between the boats and the port. Furthermore, authorities forced the activists into stress positions; while being moved around the port, they were forced to walk bent completely forward while guards violently held their backs down. Participants were also forced to sit onto their knees inside the boat for prolonged periods of time.

In addition to this physical abuse, the participants were subjected to severe degradation and sexual harassment and humiliation. Further, several women participants had their hijabs ripped off by Israeli authorities.

Adalah continues to monitor the situation closely. The participants will be brought tomorrow to appear before a tribunal pending their deportation. Adalah will demand to be present at these hearings to provide them with legal representation. Adalah persists in our demand for the immediate, unconditional release of all flotilla participants,currently held unlawfully.

For the latest updates, follow Adalah’s Media Channel on WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vb6ReXG8PgsLxkVY643j

Israeli authorities are predictably lying about the violence their forces used against peaceful, unarmed civilians aboard the flotilla. In the final moments before Israeli forces disabled cameras and internet communications, livestream footage clearly shows Israeli commandos opening fire on at least two civilian vessels. While we cannot yet confirm the type of ammunition used, we know that at least three flotilla participants sustained non-life-threatening gunshot injuries, disproving Israel’s claim that it fired only at the vessels and not at civilians on board.

Livestream footage also shows Israeli forces deploying high-pressure water cannons against civilian vessels — a tactic the Israeli navy has long used to harass and endanger Palestinian fishers in Gaza. At least one flotilla vessel was deliberately rammed by an Israeli assault craft, while others were damaged and left adrift.

More than 400 volunteers from over 40 countries have now been forcibly detained after being unlawfully attacked and captured in international waters. Many have been held incommunicado for nearly 48 hours now. A source with direct knowledge of the situation described the unsanitary detention conditions, lack of adequate water and medical care, and exposure to cold temperatures. These abuses constitute serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law.

Israel’s assault on the flotilla and seizure of civilian vessels in international waters constitute grave violations of international law. The naval blockade imposed on Gaza is itself unlawful because it forms part of Israel’s ongoing collective punishment of the Palestinian civilian population and has contributed to mass starvation, deprivation, and humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza. International law does not permit a state to enforce an unlawful blockade through military attacks on civilians or humanitarian vessels in international waters. The targeting, boarding, damaging, and seizure of civilian ships are acts of unlawful aggression for which Israeli officials and military personnel must be held accountable.

We demand that all abducted volunteers be granted immediate access to their attorneys, medical care, and full consular access without delay. We call on governments to unequivocally condemn Israel’s acts of piracy, violence, and abuse against their nationals, and take immediate action to secure their release and safe passage home. But, consular assistance alone is not an adequate response to the unlawful abduction and mistreatment of civilians in international waters. States have an obligation to protect their citizens and to hold Israel accountable for egregious violations of international law and the fundamental rights of their nationals. Silence and inaction in the face of these attacks is complicity and only increases Israel’s sense of impunity — the very impunity that enabled the ongoing genocide in Gaza — and will lead to further Israeli violations, violence, and attacks on civilians.

 

The largest civilian flotilla in the history of support for Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank was illegally attacked and boarded by Israeli navy forces, beginning at 10:30am Türkiye time, Monday, May 18, 2026.

Multiple large Israeli warships disgorged a large number of zodiac boats filled with combat laden Israeli Offensive Forces.

At this point, nine hours into the illegal attack, the combat Israeli military personnel forcefully boarded 27 of the ships in the flotilla organized by Global Sumud Flotilla, Freedom Flotilla Coalition and Mavi Marmara Freedom and Solidarity Association.

At last update (3:00 am Türkiye Time), 10 Flotilla boats were still sailing towards Gaza to break the blockade, include Lina Al-Nabulsi, see our livestream at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AzAKOmgb0A

TAKE ACTION NOW: https://freedomflotilla.org/action/ 

Adrien Jouan is a skipper and a globetrotter. He is engaged in ecology through the degrowth movement.

Maxime PARIZEL is a French social worker, specialised in supporting displaced families and individuals, particularly as a result of armed conflict.
His activism centres on human rights, with a focus on the rights of migrants and queer people.

Kaleem Cerie Bullivant has a lifetime of activism behind him. He grew up with his beloved late mother taking him to support the miner strikes in Britain while he was still in his pram. Since then he has supported many human rights campaigns mainly centring on the unjust persecution of Muslims across the world. He has a particular interest in campaigning against the Prevent duty and the way it is used to racially target and punish Muslims.

Islamophobic hate is something he feels extremely strongly about and as such he has worked with several organisations to expose it and tackle it. Most notably he has worked with Cage, a UK based international Human Rights advocacy organisation.

He has done several media appearances representing the British Muslim community at times when the national conversation has questioned their humanity. As well as media he has also written several op-eds concerning his activism and his experiences in human rights advocay.
Gaza is a genocide and horrific crime dating back almost 8 decades. It’s the moral duty of our time to stand with Palistine.

Kaleem has four children with a wife he adores. His family is his light in our dark world. He is dedicated to them, spending time exploring the museums, parks and hikes of London with them when he can.

He also enjoys playing Dungeons and Dragons with his friends. He’s an avid player.

PRESS RELEASE

Freedom Flotilla Coalition Launches Boats for New Phase of Gaza Flotilla Mission

For Immediate Release
May 13, 2026

FFC Media Contact: David Heap (English, français, español)
[email protected]

On May 13, 2026, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is launching five vessels — Adalah, Kyriakos X, Lina Al Nabulsi, PERSEVERANCE and Tenaz Love Aqsa Bangladesh — from a Greek island as part of the broader international flotilla effort to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza and challenge the impunity enabling genocide, starvation, and the wholesale erasure of the Palestinian people. These vessels will join approximately 55 additional boats departing from Marmaris, Türkiye. While our five boats (sailing under French, Italian and Polish flags) carry symbolic amounts of food and medicine, we are not an aid organization. We sail in defiance of a brutal and unlawful blockade designed to isolate, imprison, and persecute Palestinians, and in rejection of the international community’s failure to stop Israel’s ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people.

Since 2010, the FFC has organized and sailed dozens of vessels in direct challenge to Israel’s unlawful naval blockade, building on the historic missions of the Free Gaza Movement, which first broke the blockade by sea in 2008. Following the June 2025 voyage of the Madleen, international participation in flotilla initiatives expanded significantly, reflecting growing global civil society’s refusal to accept our governments’ normalization of siege and genocide.

This phase of the mission follows Israel’s April 29 attack on 22 civilian vessels off the western coast of Greece, as well as the abduction and abuse of two Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) organizers. Following that attack, organizers temporarily paused departures in order to assess security conditions and coordinate next steps. Despite escalating attacks and intimidation, the flotilla mission continues.

In recent weeks, Israel and the United States have attempted to smear and criminalize the GSF through baseless allegations clearly aimed at delegitimizing civilian resistance and manufacturing public consent for further attacks on the mission. The release of organizers Saif and Thiago without charges only further exposed the emptiness of these claims. Israel and all states cooperating with it are on clear notice: this flotilla is civilian, unarmed, and sailing in accordance with international law, and in defense of fundamental human rights.

For Palestinians in Gaza who have endured two decades of a deadly blockade, repeated military assaults, forced deprivation, sexual violence and ongoing genocide, this flotilla represents more than humanitarian solidarity. It is an act of international civilian resistance against settler colonial violence and the global machinery that sustains it.

The Freedom Flotilla Coalition remains committed to direct, nonviolent action–at sea and on land–to confront Israel’s illegal closure of Gaza and to stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom, dignity, return, and self-determination.

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About the Freedom Flotilla Coalition:
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) is composed of civil society organizations and grassroots initiatives from across the globe. Since 2010, we have actively challenged Israel’s illegal and inhumane blockade of Gaza by sea, continuing the powerful precedent set by the Free Gaza Movement, which began sailing boats to Gaza in 2008. Our actions aim to uphold international law and to support the Palestinian people’s rights to freedom of movement, self-determination, and dignity. The FFC is committed to confronting the complicity of governments, corporations, and institutions that enable and profit from Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid. See a list of FFC member campaigns and partners.