Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and 170 other members of the intercepted Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla were deported from Israel on Monday to Greece and Slovakia, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Photos shared by the ministry showed Thunberg and other deportees making their way through the Ramon International Airport in southern Israel in prison-issue gray sweatsuits and white t-shirts.
The deportees hail from Greece, Italy, France, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Austria, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Serbia, and the United States, said the ministry.
The flights to Greece and Slovakia brought the number of Sumud flotilla activists deported by Israel to 341, with 138 remaining.
Arriving home, several detainees have complained of abuse and harsh conditions during their time in Israeli custody.
Israel on Monday insisted that “all the legal rights of the participants in this PR stunt were and will continue to be fully upheld,” adding that “the lies they are spreading are part of their pre-planned fake news campaign.”
The only violence, said the ministry on X, came from a Spanish participant who bit a medical staffer at Ketziot Prison.
That activist, identified by Spanish media as Reyes Rigo Cervilla from Mallorca, will remain in police custody at least until Wednesday.
A Beersheba Magistrate’s Court judge extended her remand by three more days on Monday morning, after she was detained by police following the bite.
Thunberg and other detainees have alleged that they were held in unlawful conditions by Israel.
Spanish activists alleged mistreatment on their arrival in Spain late on Sunday after being deported.
“They beat us, dragged us along the ground, blindfolded us, tied our hands and feet, put us in cages and insulted us,” lawyer Rafael Borrego told reporters at Madrid’s airport.
Former Barcelona Mayor Ada Calau, who was also on the flotilla, said there had been “mistreatment, but that was nothing compared to what the Palestinian people suffer every day.”
Spanish journalists Carlos de Barron and Nestor Prieto said Israeli authorities signed a statement on the deported activists’ behalf claiming they had entered Israel illegally.
“They placed documents in Hebrew in front of us, denying us the right to a translator, and we did not receive consular assistance because they did not allow the (Spanish) consul to enter the port of Ashdod,” Prieto said.
Israel intercepted 42 vessels of the Sumud flotilla last week. The flotilla, which carried a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid, was the latest attempt by activists to challenge Israel’s years-long naval blockade on Gaza.
Similar attempts were intercepted in June and July, amid spiking international anger at Israel over the hunger crisis in the Strip. Israeli officials have denounced the Sumud and other missions as pro-Hamas stunts.
In an August report that Israel has rejected, the UN declared a famine in parts of northern Gaza. Israel, which blocked the entry of aid into Gaza for nearly three months until May, has accused Hamas of systematically looting aid entering the Strip since the war there was sparked when the terror group invaded Israel on October 7, 2023.
Meanwhile, a new nine-boat flotilla organized by the Freedom Flotilla Coalition is also expected to approach Gaza soon and be intercepted by the Israeli Navy. The mission, said to include about 100 activists on one of the boats, set sail from Italy some two weeks ago and was traveling north of Egypt’s Alexandria on Monday, according to the flotilla’s live-tracker.