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Istanbul: When the activists of the Global Sumud Flotilla landed in Istanbul on May 21, many of them could not fully feel their hands. Others had fractured ribs, concussions or bruises from metal handcuffs fastened so tightly that blood had stopped circulating. Some had received injections they could not identify. Several alleged sexual assaults.

They had been seized on international waters by Israeli forces on May 18, en route to Gaza with humanitarian aid. What followed, by their own accounts, was a systematic campaign of physical, psychological and sexual abuse carried out not in some undisclosed facility, but on prison boats and at Ashdod port, in full view of Israeli military personnel.

Siasat.com spoke exclusively to several of the released activists.

Bringing food and hope to Gaza 

Logan Hollarsmith, an American who captained one of the Flotilla ships, was on his second such mission. He described the flotilla as something larger than a humanitarian convoy. “The boats carried people from different faiths, different backgrounds and countries,” he told Siasat.com. “They carried food, hope and the imagination of possibilities of how everyone can work together as humans across boundaries.”

By mistake, he had been assigned to a ship of 50 Turkish activists, making him the only non-Turk aboard. He said it turned into an unexpected education. “It was a good experience introducing sailing to many people who hadn’t sailed before,” he said, adding that he learned a great deal about Turkish culture along the way.

His vessel – a small sailboat named “L’ark,” which he described as French for bow – managed to evade Israeli warships for 10 hours before being caught. “It was alarming to see Israeli commandos board beautiful old ships and wreck everything,” he said. “You could see the massive warships – destroyers of worlds, cities floating on water.”

Hollarsmith had previously organised flotillas to Cuba and Puerto Rico. Gaza, he said, felt different. “When I witnessed what’s happening in Palestine, it was so paralysing. It seemed like a good opportunity to do something,” he said.

He had gone to sleep during the night shift, as sailboats can run around the clock but sailors cannot, and was woken six hours later by his crewmate, Turkish activist Ahmet Soylemez, just as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) were closing in. “We suffered a lot of pain in the prisons,” Hollarsmith said. “But the pain of staying home would have been worse,” he added.

Under any legal definition, it was torture: Activist

John Zacharias Christ, an American activist who also holds Turkish citizenship, left no room for doubt about what he experienced. “I’m pretty sure under the legal definition of torture, we were all subjected to torture,” he told Siasat.com.

He had deliberately travelled on his Turkish passport rather than his American one. “I believed Türkiye would actually do something to protect me,” he said. “And it did.”

After being seized on international waters, which in itself was illegal kidnapping, the activists were transferred onto prison boats. Roughly 150 people were crowded together in a cramped space and forced to sleep on top of each other. The IDF periodically flooded the area with seawater to keep them cold and wet, shone flashlights directly at them and pointed guns and laser sights at them.

Two portable toilets served all 150 people. They did not flush. By the time the boat reached Ashdod, the toilets had overflowed with urine, faeces and blood. Women who were menstruating had no alternative. “It was cold, wet and dirty,” Zacharias said.

The activists were not allowed to sleep. “They banged on the sides of the doors, they would call us in the middle of the night and throw flash bangs or sound grenades in front of us,” Zacharias said.

The toll, he said, was staggering and this was all before the ship had docked. “In my boat alone, and there were three boats – 35 people suffered fractured ribs, five head injuries resulting in concussions, 11 or 12 sexual assaults.”

Stress positions, metal cuffs, unknown injections

At Ashdod port, the treatment did not improve.

Activists were forced into stress positions for hours – bodies bent forward, hands tied tightly behind their backs. “Blood circulation stopped,” Zacharias said. He added that he still cannot fully feel his hands.

They were made to walk on their knees, forced to keep their faces to the ground and dragged across the floor. Israeli forces would sometimes pull them up only to shove them back down. Prisoners were beaten and hit with gun nozzles. Some were tasered. Some received injections of unknown substances.

People with broken legs were made to run alongside everyone else, in sandals that Israeli soldiers had given them during the strip search – sandals that were too small for their feet.

Zacharias alleged that he was himself sexually assaulted. “I was in a stress position as they poured water or some unknown liquid into my behind.” He said others suffered more extreme forms of sexual assault. Israeli soldiers made activists perform naked squats next to each other, laughing as they issued commands such as “up, down, up, down – now hold.”

He also described a panic attack when 20 people were placed in a space with no air ventilation.

Before deportation, at the airport, Israeli forces removed everyone’s handcuffs. “So the closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras wouldn’t catch their crimes,” Zacharias told Siasat.com. He added that he believed women aboard the flotilla were subjected to harsher treatment and were taken away separately.

What struck him most, he said, was the apparent arbitrariness of the violence. “The way they treated prisoners had no relation with any kind of reasoning. They acted on their impulse and did whatever they felt like in the moment because they know there’s no accountability,” he said.

He noted that several of his captors spoke fluent American English. “Some of them had distinctly New York accents. Some of them were not even born in Israel – they made a life choice to come here and engage in these sadistic activities in a different part of the world,” he added.

‘Are you Turkish? F*** Türkiye’

Turkish activist Ahmet Soylemez – Hollarsmith’s crewmate who woke him just before Israeli forces arrived – said the activists had undergone intensive training in their legal rights and in non-violent conduct before the mission.

It made no difference. “As soon as we reached Ashdod port, we were dragged by the IDF on our faces,” he told Siasat.com. “They beat me up and I suffered fractured ribs.” He said Turkish activists were specifically singled out, and that half of them ended up with broken ribs.

During the strip search, soldiers routinely abused the activists throughout. In the middle of this, they asked Soylemez whether he was Turkish. When he confirmed it, they responded, “F*** Türkiye! F*** Erdoğan! F*** Palestine.”

Soylemez said he was proud of how swiftly Turkish intervention secured the release of all the activists from across the world. The moment he caught a glimpse of a Turkish Airlines emblem through a gap in the bus window, as they were being driven to the airport, was, he said, the greatest relief he had felt in his life.

Once the activists realised they were no longer in danger, they began chanting “free, free Palestine” in the faces of IDF soldiers, still on occupied Palestinian soil.

The Turkish government, aside from swiftly rescuing the activists from Israeli detention, extended VIP treatment to all the activists, welcoming them as celebrated heroes in Istanbul. They exited from the VIP terminal of Istanbul airport.

Ahmet Soylemez said that on board the Turkish Airlines flight, the activists were provided with new clothes, warm food and “incredible hospitality.”  “The captain and the hostesses welcome everyone as heroes,” he said.

Electrocuted twice, beaten twice, but still determined

An activist from East Türkistan, identified only as İbrahim, was the first mate on Hollarsmith’s ship. He said he was electrocuted twice and beaten twice. At one point, he asked an Israeli soldier for a cigarette. “They beat me up again,” he said.

With two broken ribs, İbrahim told Siasat.com he would do it all over again. “If it meant a little more awareness about Gaza and a little more pressure on Israel,” he added. Ibrahim said what the activists faced in their brief detention is nothing compared to what the Palestinians have been suffering for over 80 years.

Legal proceedings and new movement

Turkish NGOs, including the Worldwide Lawyers Association (WOLAS), are now pursuing legal action against Israel for the illegal detention of international activists in international waters. All released activists were asked to remain in Türkiye for two additional days so that their statements could be formally collected by IHH, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation and a Turkish NGO that co-organised the flotilla.

One of the Sumud Flotilla’s organisers, who goes by Turan bey, said the mission had always been about ending Gaza’s blockade. “The IDF soldiers were afraid of these unarmed international activists,” he told Siasat.com. The purpose of the flotilla, he added, was to raise awareness about the ugly face of Israel – and to hold up a mirror to the governments that have chosen silence.

“A lot of countries are silent about what Israel is doing. Our attempt is to bring attention to these countries as well,” Turan bey said.

The flotilla, he said, is now something larger. “We are turning this into a global movement, from water, air, ground, media, we will continue to try to reach Gaza.” It will henceforth be called the Global Sumud Movement.

‘Only joint international military intervention can end it’

Siasat.com also spoke to Adrià Calafell Dueñas, a Spanish activist who participated in the Global March to Gaza in June 2024, the land-based effort that ran into a different kind of obstruction.

Calafell Dueñas, who converted to Islam in October last year, said the Egyptian government deployed hired gangs to attack and beat activists participating in the march. Every few kilometres, there were checkpoints at which activists were kidnapped, tortured and deported.

“For me, to watch a Muslim country beating and torturing non-Muslims for doing what all Muslims must do – it was horrible,” he said.

He was blunt about what 80 years of civil and non-violent movements to confront Israeli apartheid had shown. They had all failed, he said, and their failure only strengthened the argument that Israel is a rogue state and “only a joint international military intervention would abolish it.”

He was equally clear, however, that this view does not mean activists will stop. “We will do everything in our power to put more pressure on not just Israel but other governments to move militarily,” he concluded.