Jerusalem, June 11 (EFE).- The eight activists from the Freedom Flotilla who have not yet been deported remain detained in Israel and could stay in the country for up to a month, according to their team of lawyers on Wednesday.
“The court set a follow-up custody review for July 8, 2025, at 9:00 a.m., in case deportation does not occur beforehand. In this way, the Court allows the authorities to extend the detention arbitrarily, possibly for a month (…) without further judicial supervision and in clear violation of international law,” said the Palestinian legal group Adalah, which represents the activists in Israel.
Under Israeli law, when a person receives deportation orders, they are detained for 72 hours or more before being expelled from the country, the group explained in a statement.
Of the 12 activists who were traveling aboard the Madleen, a Freedom Flotilla ship that intended to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza and deliver a symbolic amount of humanitarian aid to the enclave, four have already agreed to be deported, but the rest refused to sign their voluntary deportation and were brought before a court.
According to Adalah, the detention review court in the town of Ramla, where the activists are being held, accepted the detention orders from the Ministry of the Interior last night.
“In Adalah’s opinion, the law applied by the court u2014″illegal entry into Israel”u2014 is inapplicable to the Madleen volunteers. They did not attempt to enter Israel nor did they intend to do so in Israeli territorial waters. Their planned route was from Sicily to international waters and then directly to the internationally recognized territorial waters of the State of Palestine, in Gaza,” explained the legal group.
According to the lawyers, the Israeli authorities “intercepted and forcibly seized” the ship and “detained the volunteers, violating their will and their fundamental rights under international law.”
The group asserts that the interception of the ship occurred in international waters, 102 nautical miles from the coast of Gaza, something that Israel has not yet confirmed or denied.
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The eight activists remaining in Israel are Suayb Ordu, from Turkey; Mark van Rennes, from the Netherlands; Pascal Maurieras, Reva Viard, Yanis Mhamdi and Rima Hassan, from France; Thiago Avila, from Brazil; and Yasemin Acar, from Germany.
The four who accepted deportation and have already left the country are the Swedish activist Greta Thunberg; the Spanish activist Sergio Toribio, who was transferred to Barcelona on a flight; and the French citizens Omar Faiad (journalist) and Baptiste Andre (activist).
According to the Freedom Flotilla, Brazilian Thiago Ávila, one of the captive activists, “has been on hunger and water strike since yesterday”, and others have denounced “unsanitary conditions” under the custody of Israeli prison services, because they are under “bedbug infestations and access only to non-potable running water”.
The activists on board the Madleen ship were heading to the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid with the aim of breaking the blockade imposed by Israel on the access of basic goods such as food, food or fuel to the enclave.
They were intercepted by Israeli forces early Monday morning and the Army escorted the ship to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where they were detained.
On March 2, Israel launched a total blockade on the entry of humanitarian aid to Gaza, which partially concluded on May 19 with the entry of some loaded trucks, mostly with flour and other food.
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However, international organizations denounce that the aid that has reached Gaza since then is very insufficient to supply a population of 2.1 million people subjected to more than a year and a half of war.
