Irish activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was attempting to break Israel’s blockade and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, recounted their experiences after being detained by Israeli forces.
Speaking to Anadolu after arriving in Türkiye, the Irish activists said they were intercepted by Israel in international waters and subjected to harsh treatment during their detention.
Margaret Connolly, a 67-year-old general practitioner from Sligo and sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, said the flotilla had been traveling in international waters with the aim of delivering food, fuel, and medical aid to Gaza.
Connolly emphasized that the mission was peaceful and unarmed.
“We were sailing to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza with food, fuel, and medical aid. We were peaceful. Absolutely no arms on board. All I had was a jumper and a sweater.”
Connolly said she had never traveled by ship before and described the voyage as “a big, huge experience.”
“We have been held by the military since Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Three days of my life that seems like five years.”
She said around 50 people were forced to sleep side by side in a “filthy container” for three days with little food and insufficient water, adding that Israeli authorities refused to provide soap or toilet paper.
Describing the past three days as “barbaric, cruel, ugly, and violent,” Connolly said: “I never saw such ugly, ugly control by an army.”
“The conditions were horrific. We’ve had 35 fractures, five head injuries, up to 16 sexual abuses, ear injuries, and eye injuries. Absolute numerous taser burns to the back and genitals,” she said.
‘Shame on you Micheal Martin’
Connolly added that medications for diabetes, blood pressure, and asthma had been confiscated.
“I absolutely am outraged that my drugs were taken. For all of these injuries, I didn’t have a single painkiller. Fifty of us sleeping beside each other in a filthy container with no food for three days and not enough water. There was nothing to clean wounds in,” she said.
Connolly stressed that the land they had hoped to reach “has belonged to Palestinians for thousands of years” and accused Israel of acting “with impunity.”
“How can you stand by killing babies? Having hospitals destroyed, so young babies in incubators die of oxygen deprivation? How can you burn tents where people live with nothing but their children in their arms?” she said.
She noted that over 75,000 people have been killed in Gaza since October 2023 and that hospitals and civilian infrastructure have been destroyed.
Connolly also criticized the Irish government, accusing it of supporting Israel and being “complicit in this genocide.”
“I demand that our shameful Irish government voted no to sanctions. Shame on you, Micheal Martin. Shame, shame, shame,” she said.
She thanked the Turkish government for supporting the group during their evacuation from Israel, saying: “I thank the Turkish government very much for sending a plane to rescue us from the Israeli Zionist state.”
‘All of us got beaten’
Another Irish activist, Michael Cullen, said the group had been carrying out a nonviolent humanitarian mission in accordance with international law when the Israeli military “fired a lot of rounds of what turned out to be plastic bullets” at their boat “in international waters, in broad daylight,” injuring some activists.
“We didn’t know that they were plastic bullets. They could have been live bullets for all we knew at the time. So it was scary,” Cullen said.
He said they were later taken to a prison ship operated by the Israeli military.
“When we arrived onto the prison ship, all of us got beaten,” Cullen said, adding that they were later placed in metal containers overnight.
After reaching land in Ashdod, Cullen said that Israeli police and soldiers assaulted detainees, including women.
“I’ve never heard as much people screaming and crying. And I’ve never seen human beings enjoy inflicting suffering and pain onto other people the way that I’ve seen the joy in the Israelis’ eyes as they were hurting people. It was really sickening and scary to behold such evil,” he said.
‘Israel needs to be held accountable’
Cullen said the activists hoped to bring renewed international attention to the Palestinian issue.
“We wanted to highlight that the genocide is still ongoing; the ethnic cleansing and the starvation of Palestinian people in Gaza and the settler colonies in the West Bank are still ongoing,” he said.
“If we’ve done anything, hopefully we have put the Palestine question back into the eyes of the world,” he added.
Cullen said the treatment they experienced was “only a fraction” of what Palestinians endure daily.
“We will recover. We’ll go home. And we’ll try again. But (for) Palestinian people, this is their 24/7, and it’s not in the media enough as it should be,” he said.
He also accused European governments of complicity in Israel’s actions and said Israel was becoming increasingly “bolder” and “more aggressive.”
“Israel needs to be held accountable, and every person in the world should do their utmost to bring Israel to justice,” Cullen said.
The flotilla said Tuesday that all 50 vessels in its convoy had been seized by Israel following attacks in international waters.
The flotilla, carrying 428 people from 44 countries, departed last Thursday from Marmaris, Türkiye, in its latest attempt to break the illegal Israeli blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007, which has left much of the population on the brink of starvation.
*Writing by Gizem Nisa Demir
