The Handala activists were detained late on Saturday after Israeli forces seized their ship despite being in international waters [Getty/file photo]
Hearings in Israel against 14 of the activists on board the Handala vessel who were detained at the weekend by Israeli forces concluded on Monday, with the activists refusing to sign an expedited deportation process.
During the hearings, the activists insisted that they acted on humanitarian grounds and were motivated by the need to break Israel’s siege on the war-battered Gaza Strip, where mass starvation and deaths due to malnutrition are sweeping through, according to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab minority Rights in Israel.
Adalah added that Israeli authorities applied pressure on the activists on Sunday during their detention, in a bid to force them to wave their right to meet a lawyer. This prevented them with meeting with Adalah’s lawyers in time, the NGO said.
One of the activists, US national Christian Smalls, said Israeli forces resorted to “severe physical violence” during their detention.
Others described their detention conditions as “deplorable,” citing the lack of ventilation despite extreme heat and the absence of sanitary products for women.
Many of them are on an ongoing hunger strike in protest against their detention.
“Israel is treating them as if they entered the country illegally, despite being forcibly taken from international waters against their will,” the NGO said.
Lawyers from Adalah representing some of the activists say that they were detained in violation of international law, adding that the activists on board the ship acted “within their legitimate rights by attempting to break Israel’s illegal siege and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza”.
Adalah added that Huwaida Arraf and Bob Suberi, who are both US nationals, were interrogated by Israeli police on Sunday. Arraf said she was subsequently released.
Some of the activists already deported or pending deportation include Moroccan Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed El Bakkali, Italian activist Antonio Mazzeo and Waad Al Musa, who is also a journalist with the Qatari network and who holds US and Iraqi nationalities.
The status of Ange Sahuquet and Dr, Frank Romano, who are both French nationals, remains clear, Adalah said.
Israeli forces had illegally intercepted the Handala vessel late on Saturday, detaining the activists and journalists on board.
The incident took place just before midnight local time in international waters and around 40 nautical miles from Gaza. Israeli naval forces then forcibly seized the ship and took it to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
During their detention, the activists were reportedly presented with two options: either agree to so-called “voluntary deportation,” or remain in detention and appear before a tribunal, to have their continued detention pending deportation reviewed”.
Handala, named after a national Palestinian symbol depicting a refugee child with his back turned in the face of injustice and oppression, is the second vessel in recent months to attempt reaching Gaza to deliver symbolic aid.
The war-battered Strip has been under a vicious Israeli siege since March, with the sole aid coming in being delivered by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). GFH’s aid distribution points have been described as death traps, as Israeli fire has killed more than 1,000 Palestinians in such areas.
Last month, another Gaza Freedom Flotilla Coalition-affiliated vessel, the Madleen, was also intercepted by Israel, with its activists detained and subsequently deported. Among them were Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg and French-Palestinian MEP Rima Hassan.
