More Freedom Flotilla Member Confirm They Faced Rape And Torture While In Israeli Captivity.

More members of the Freedom Flotilla Reveal That They Faced Rape And Torture While In Israeli Captivity.

Recently, the German journalist Anna Liedtke, who was part of the Freedom Flotilla initiative, which broke the Israeli starvation siege of Gaza and brought aid, revealed that she was raped when she was detained by Israeli authorities.

At a conference, Liedtke revealed that, “I was part of the Freedom Flotilla as a journalist, and I was on the journalist and medical boat … around 100 nautical miles away from the coast of Gaza, we were intercepted and we were put into prison for five days, we were transferred from one prison to another, and during the strip search, I was raped”.

Since her testimony, the Freedom Flotilla Coalition has revealed that, “Anna is not the only flotilla participant to have suffered sexual violence at the hands of Israeli police and prison officials. 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 coalition provided testimony from the three victims of Israeli rape and sexual torture, writing that Anna Liedtke said, “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”.

The report also quoted Italian journalist Vincenzo Fullone saying, “In 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.”

The report quoted Australian activist Surya McEwen saying, “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”.

As the Freedom Flotilla Coalition noted, “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. 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. While we are committed to offering care and support for flotilla volunteers who have suffered sexual violence, we recognize that Palestinians–activists, children, women, men, and elderly detainees– have endured far more pervasive and systematic sexual violence and torture by Israel, with no credible accountability mechanisms.”

Indeed, the testimony from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition members matches harrowing testimony that has emerged from released Palestinian hostages from Israel’s torture dungeons.

Testimony taken by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights reveals an “organized and systematic practice of sexual torture, including rape, forced stripping, forced filming, sexual assault using objects and dogs, in addition to deliberate psychological humiliation aimed at crushing human dignity and erasing individual identity entirely.”

The new testimony from the Freedom Flotilla Coalition provides further evidence that Israel and Israeli authorities have used rape and sexual torture as official policy against detainees as a broader part of the overall genocide in Gaza.

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