“They Kidnapped Us”: Deported Gaza Flotilla Activist Describes Israeli Interception in Int’l Waters

NERMEEN SHAIKH: This is Democracy Now!democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Nermeen Shaikh in New York.

AMY GOODMAN: And I’m Amy Goodman in Salt Lake City, here for the 50th anniversary of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters. Hundreds of heads of community radio stations have gathered to talk about the importance of independent media.

But we’re moving on to what’s happened on the high seas. Officials in Gaza have accused Israeli forces of killing at least 31 more Palestinians who were attempting to collect aid at a food distribution site south of Gaza City. A spokesperson for Gaza’s Civil Defense said 200 people were also wounded as Israeli forces attacked the crowd with tanks and drones in the latest massacre of aid seekers.

This comes as Israel is continuing to detain eight people who were detained Monday when Israeli Navy commandos intercepted a Gaza-bound boat carrying humanitarian aid on the high seas. Four others on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla have already been deported, including Greta Thunberg, who’s made her way back to Sweden, the famous climate activist. Dr. Baptiste André, a French doctor who was on board the Masedis now back in France. And Greta Thunberg, before going to Sweden, was deported to Paris, where she spoke to reporters.

GRETA Thunberg: But they did an illegal act by kidnapping us on international waters and against our will, bringing us to Israel, keeping us in the bottom of the boat, not letting us getting out and so on. But that is not the real story here. The real story is that there is a genocide going on in Gaza and a systematic starvation following the siege and blockade now, which is leading to food, medicine, water that are desperately needed to get into Gaza is prevented from doing so.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Some Gaza flotilla crew members now reportedly face a hundred-year entry ban.

For more, we’re joined in Logroño, Spain, by Sergio Toribio, a Spanish activist with the Freedom Flotilla Coalition who was one of the 12 on board the Mased flotilla to Gaza delivering humanitarian aid and has just been deported back to his home country of Spain.

Welcome to Democracy Now!Sergio Toribio. Describe to us what happened when the Mased flotilla was intercepted by Israeli forces in the middle of the night in international waters.

SERGIO TORIBIO: Hi. Yes. What I can say, you know, we have this night watch between 12:00 and 4:00. And around 1:00 in the morning, we have the visit of two fast boats. And they didn’t give any radio instruction, or they didn’t say anything to us. They just crossed by us, you know, like trying to intercept us, but nothing else. They left. We rushed the alarm, because we were — we’ve been training for that, no? We were training the last days on we have some case of attack, no? The thing is, they left. They didn’t say anything on the radio.

And then, by 10, 15 minutes, we have a visit of a drone, a close-range drone. This drone was trying to come very close to the ship, and he gets hit, one of the wires of the mast, and he left on the water. So, like, two minutes later, we got another two big drones, one with a very powerful light, and the other was throwing over us, over the whole ship, over the cabin, over us, like a paste, a white paste. You know, we didn’t even know what it is, still there. So, we get closed inside the cabin, the cabinet with our life rafts, ready to get assaulted, because we trained, as I said. And in like half an hour after this throwing this seed, this paste of — kind of find that when you touch it or get in contact with it, it get black and very, very slippery, you know, in the — for example, in the floors of the deck.

So, at the end of this attack, there were two fast boats approaching us by the starboard and the port side, and then they give us a message in English through the speakers, like they were about to embark us, they were not to harm us. They were trying to keep a bit lower the nerves, no? Raising hands, be quiet. So, at the end, they boarded us, like 12 well-armed men with M4, shotguns, guns, knives, you know, covered up, up to the ace. More than 12 soldiers, you know? They get us, like, closed in the cabin, within a, like, master station. And they moved us. One per one, they moved us on the bow of the ship.

After that, they registered us. And when they gathered the 12, the medic of this command, they come to us to ask for some medical condition or if someone was injured. They offered us some water. They offered us some food. And they kept us in the deck of the boat for around 15 hours, until like 12:00 in the morning, something like that, between 12:00 and 2:00, because I didn’t have a clock. It was when the sun started to really get onto us. They moved us inside the ship, and they kept us under the decks like for another 10 hours, 12 hours, until we reached Tel Aviv harbor.

AMY GOODMAN: And so, Sergio, tell us what happened then. If you can explain what happened when you were — you were first brought into Ashdod, and then why four of you were deported — you, Greta Thunberg and two others — and others remain there in Israel?

SERGIO TORIBIO: Yeah. The thing is, after the army gave the command to us from the ship to land to the police, to the Israeli police, and they registered us again. They passed us the dogs. I guess that is normal procedures. And they put us in tables with another agents trying to get us to sign this — that we tried to enter in a military zone. But we’ve been more than 100 miles in international waters. That cannot be possible that it was a military zone as they said. So, they kidnapped us, you know? They forced us out, when our destiny was clear. We made the —

AMY GOODMAN: And can you say why you — Sergio, can you say why you went on this ship, why you were part of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition, named for a —

SERGIO TORIBIO: Because I am an activist. Yeah —

AMY GOODMAN: — Gazan fisherwoman, the first Gazan fisherwoman?

SERGIO TORIBIO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did this because I am an activist, and I felt that Palestinian people deserve that we put in the whole world know what is happening in there, that is a genocide. So, for me, it’s like I have the chance to join the flotilla, and I decide to help them in a way I can, no matter how.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Sergio, you’ve said that you would do this all over again. If you could talk about that?

SERGIO TORIBIO: Yes, yes, yes. I’m trying to get in this march from Egypt, from Cairo. But the thing is a very short time. I have a window very short. So I don’t think it’s going to be possible this time. But, of course, I am an activist, and I’m — you know, for the last 11 years, I’ve been in marine protection. I’ve been rescuing people in the Mediterranean for two years and a half. And now I have this chance to join the flotilla and to join any kind of Gaza — pro-Gaza movement, you know, for help Palestinian and for help — for fight against this genocide, you know?

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Sergio, can you tell us, since you’ve returned to Spain, what kind of reception have you received?

SERGIO TORIBIO: The first for me was the diplomatic zone on Gaza’s immigration center, in the airport in Tel Aviv. It was our consul there and our visa consul. That was super nice to see how they behave and how — to see they’ve been worried, of course, about what happened, you know, because we didn’t make anything wrong, and we didn’t try to enter any kind of military zone. We’ve been in international waters trying to deliver some food, like symbolic, because my mission was to break the siege they are having illegally against these people, the Palestinian people, and in Gaza. It was very nicely and very warm to have also all the media teams waiting in Barcelona, a friend I didn’t know that was also waiting for me there, you know, from the Gaza movement, from this flotilla coalition. And, of course, when I returned to Logroño, that is my home, you can imagine, my mom and my sister were there, that they were very, very worried about.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And do you see, Sergio — do you imagine more people joining the next time there is such a flotilla, from other places in the world? You just have 30 seconds.

SERGIO TORIBIO: I am pretty sure. I am pretty sure that this is going to happen, you know, because now more and more people is knowing what is happening. And not only — you know, we are a lot of different countries working on it. You know, it’s not only the countries we’ve been in this flotilla, because it happened on other flotillas. And they attacked these coast guards one month ago.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: I’m afraid we’re going to have to leave it there, Sergio. Sergio Toribio is a Spanish activist and member of the Freedom Flotilla Coalition. Special thanks to the team at [Spy] Hop Youth Media Art Center: Larissa Trout, Don Barfuss, Maya Hardie, Mary Allison, Bryan Barrios. I am Nermeen Shaikh in New York, with Amy Goodman in Salt Lake City.