Activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla who have been detained in Israel since their flotilla was intercepted on its way to Gaza earlier this week are being mistreated by the Israeli Prison Service, legal aid organization Adalah claimed on Saturday.

The Israeli Arab organization said that numerous activists have reported being mistreated, with some saying that they were denied food and water and others reporting that they have been manhandled by Israeli law enforcement.

In one instance, Adalah said that an activist, whom it did not identify by name, had told one of the organization’s lawyers that both she and fellow activist Greta Thunberg were videotaped standing in front of Israeli flags after being detained.

The organization’s allegations appeared consistent with a report published by the Guardian newspaper on Saturday, which reported that Thunberg, a prominent Swedish pro-Palestinian and climate campaigner, was being held in harsh conditions in an Israeli prison.

More than 470 activists were detained across 42 boats when the Israeli Navy intercepted the Global Sumud Flotilla on Wednesday night. Since then, more than 130 have been deported from Israel back to their home countries, most of them via Istanbul.

Those still awaiting deportation are being held at the Ketziot prison in the Negev, which is one of Israel’s primary security prisons.

An Adalah spokesperson said on Saturday evening that some of the flotilla participants being held there have reported receiving insufficient amounts of food, with some of them saying on Friday that they had received no food at all since being brought to the port of Ashdod.

Thunberg herself complained of receiving insufficient food and water during her detention, according to correspondence with the Swedish foreign ministry.

In correspondence acquired by the Guardian, the Swedish foreign ministry told Thunberg’s associates that the embassy had been able to meet with the 22-year-old activist, and that she was being held in harsh conditions.

“The embassy has been able to meet with Greta. She informed of dehydration. She has received insufficient amounts of both water and food,” read the email. “She also stated that she had developed rashes, which she suspects were caused by bedbugs. She spoke of harsh treatment and said she had been sitting for long periods on hard surfaces.”

Corroborating Adalah’s account, the embassy said another detainee informed embassy staff that they had seen Thunberg “being forced to hold flags while pictures were taken.”

“She wondered whether images of her had been distributed,” the embassy added.

Speaking to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency news outlet, activist and journalist Ersin Çelik, who was deported from Israel on Saturday, alleged that prison staff had singled out Thunberg in particular, and had “forced her to kiss the Israeli flag.”

In response to a query on the matter of forcing Thunberg to hold an Israeli flag, an Israel Prison Service spokesman told the Times of Israel that the agency was “unaware of such an incident.”

Other activists have told Adalah’s lawyers that they have been shoved, roughly handled, shoved to the ground, or punched at some stage during the interception and detention.

Many also stated they had been left in the sun, sitting on their knees for hours during the course of Thursday, before being brought to a hearing in front of an immigration authority tribunal.

The pro-government news outlet Channel 14 reported that far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited Ketziot to ensure that the protesters were being given “the minimum of the minimum,” in accordance with the protocols he has imposed on Palestinian security prisoners.

“We are in Ketziot prison, and as I promised, those flotilla members, supporters of terrorism, are here in a security prison,” Channel 14 reported Ben Gvir as saying.

“They receive conditions for terrorists here, for everything, terrorist sweatpants, terrorist conditions. This means, there is a minimum of the minimum, that’s what I promised and that’s how we are fulfilling it.”

On Friday, the ultranationalist minister suggested that Israel would be better off throwing the flotilla participants in prison for several months rather than immediately deporting them back to their home countries.

Security prisoners — those incarcerated for offenses that intentionally harm national security — are housed separately from criminal prisoners and are not eligible for many of the benefits available to the general prison population. The term is a catch-all term applied to detainees, convicted prisoners and terrorists, and administrative detainees who are held without charges for extended periods, without trial.

Ben Gvir has consistently pushed for harsher jail conditions for Palestinian security prisoners, and after the outbreak of war in 2023, he declared a “state of emergency” in prisons, which allowed him to introduce measures to reduce the living space per inmate, among other reductions in living conditions.

Palestinian prisoners have repeatedly complained of being held in dire conditions. Last month, the High Court of Justice ruled that the state, including the IPS, which Ben Gvir has authority over, had failed to fulfill its legal obligations to adequately feed Palestinian security prisoners, and ordered it to take steps to provide such prisoners with enough food “to enable a basic existence.”

The Sumud flotilla, which set sail in late August, marked the latest attempt by activists to challenge Israel’s years-long naval blockade of Gaza.

Similar attempts were intercepted in June and July, amid spiking international anger at Israel over the humanitarian crisis in the Strip. Israeli officials have denounced the Sumud and other missions as pro-Hamas media 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 Palestinian 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 about a week ago and was approaching the coast of Egypt’s Alexandria, its live-tracker showed Saturday.

Nurit Yohanan contributed to this report.