Starting on October 1, Israel abducted over 400 unarmed international activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla—the latest in an increasingly long line of attempts by pro-Palestine organizers to defy Israel’s siege and starvation of Gaza by delivering food, baby formula, crutches, and other medical supplies and essential needs. Israel’s raid on the over-40-vessel-strong flotilla lasted over 30 hours. The flotilla volunteers were then held in Israel’s Ketziot prison in the Negev desert for days, where they were humiliated and brutalized by Israeli authorities—and where Palestinian prisoners are regularly abused at the hands of the same forces.

While Israel was carrying out its raid, nine more boats were already on their way. Huwaida Arraf—the cofounder of the Free Gaza Movement, which preceded the Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC) and successfully transported people in and out of Gaza with boats in 2008—was sailing toward Gaza on the Conscience. On board were 92 civilians, largely medics and journalists who intended to support their colleagues in Gaza who have explicitly been targeted by Israel’s genocide.

Their boat joined forces with the eight vessels of the grassroots Thousand Madleens organization, with 145 citizens of 30 countries, including the United States, hoping to reach Gaza by October 10. But on early Wednesday morning, according to flotilla spokespeople, Israel descended onto the fleet with a helicopter and abducted everybody on board, along with $110,000 worth of aid.

Before we lost contact, I had the opportunity to speak to Arraf, who is now believed to be in Israeli detention in Ashdod, about the purpose of the mission.

“The world has allowed Israel to do this, to impose the most drastic, comprehensive media blackout, I think, in modern history, and to not only kill journalists, but to actually target journalists and their families,” Arraf said. To say that governments are not doing anything is actually inaccurate, because “they are actually enabling this,” she continued.

Current Issue

January 2026 Issue

At the same time, Arraf said, this is a massive “failure of the journalism profession as a whole,” especially that of legacy media, which she said disappointingly did not have any representatives on board. More than 270 journalists and media workers have been killed by Israel since the beginning of the genocide, along with at least 1,400 medical personnel in “a systematic campaign to destroy the Gaza Strip’s health and relief infrastructure,” according to Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor. The medics and journalists on board were taking it upon themselves to support “their exhausted, absolutely exhausted and traumatized colleagues” who remain in Gaza, Arraf said.

Last May, the Conscience was damaged by an Israeli drone strike off the coast of Malta. The vessel was then towed to Istanbul where it was repaired after Malta refused to allow it to dock in their ports. “The reaction to this attack by the European Union, was, I want to say shocking, but it’s almost silly to say shocking when you see their response to genocide,” Arraf told The Nation.

After the attack on the Conscience, the FFC sent off the Madleen and Handala boats toward Gaza. While ships like the Madleen had only 12 volunteers on board, who were then later abducted by Israel in international waters, those smaller missions awakened the imagination and hope of the world, Arraf said. About 26,000 people signed up to join the Global Sumud Flotilla, a coalition separate from the FFC but led by many of the same activists, like Yasemin Acar and Thiago Ávila. Arraf said that the FFC not only provides support for these other organizations but also encourages civil society and institutions, like Oxfam and Norwegian People’s Aid, to step up and create their own initiatives to break the siege, as long as world governments fail to do so.

“We’re reading about some of the horrific things that have happened to Global Sumud Flotilla activists, largely in the forms of abuse and humiliation. And we know that Palestinians endure so much, so much worse,” said Arraf. “We remain determined.”

As the first batch of 137 released Global Sumud activists landed in Türkiye on October 4, reports of mistreatment in Israeli custody immediately surfaced. Turkish activist Semanur Sönmez Yaman said that Muslim women detainees had their hijabs forcibly removed and taken from them by Israeli authorities—a tactic activists in the US know all too well. They then resorted to using white T-shirts lended by their flotilla comrades in detention as their make-shift hijabs, one of which remained on Yaman’s head as she spoke to the press upon her release.

Volunteer Mustafa Çakmakçı told Turkish reporters that he was placed in a reverse handcuff position with his head and knees on hot asphalt for roughly two hours—during which a masked Israeli soldier approached him, told him he “was in Israel now,” and injured his shoulder. “I just summarized what I experienced in only three days. And we had the power of the world behind us. Just imagine what Gazans have been experiencing for years,” he told the press.

French activist Yassine Benjelloun told Analdou Ajansı that the detained flotilla volunteers were woken up by Israeli authorities every two hours to prevent them from sleeping. This tracks with what lead organizer Yasemin Acar told The Nation after those on board the FFC ship Madleen had been kidnapped by Israel in June. Acar said that she was forced to stay awake for 30 to 40 hours by Israeli authorities—in addition to being subjected to other forms of physical and psychological torment.

Acar was on the lead vessel of the Global Sumud Flotilla, the Alma, and was kidnapped again on the Sumud mission. “We’ve been deprived of sleep, deprived of food and water. But we must remember why we were there. It’s because there is a genocide. A genocide our countries are [supporting] financially and morally and with weapons,” she told reporters upon her release on Monday. “We have to remember the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners of whom [hundreds] are children.… the prison cells we were in were filled with messages from Palestinian prisoners.” Other volunteers also reported that they saw names written in Arabic on the walls of their cells, assumed to be left by Palestinian prisoners who had written the names of their children.

“We haven’t before, and we won’t let Israel’s violence and brutality deter us,” Arraf told The Nation as the flotilla was approaching Israel’s “interception zone.” She said morale on board the Conscience remained high even while reports of the violence experienced by Sumud volunteers came in. She had made it clear to participants before their departure that “once we set sail, we’re not turning around.” She said no one made the decision to step down when given the opportunity, because to give up would be to accept the indiscriminate violence and impunity of the Israeli war machine, and the “might is right” standard of the international order.

The Freedom Flotilla activists carried out their promise. In prerecorded videos, they now call on their respective governments to secure their release and end their complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people. As hundreds are detained by Israel for their humanitarian mission, millions more will spill into the streets in solidarity, countless boats will set sail, and others will ask how they can join the next flotilla. Each time, this movement, spanning nearly two decades, continues to grow in both size and momentum.