2 Gaza aid flotilla activists face death threats in Israel’s prisons, says Israeli advocacy group

Two activists from the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, Brazilian Thiago De Avila and Spaniard Saif Abu Keshek, have received death threats while imprisoned in Israel, an Israeli advocacy group for Palestinians said on Monday.

Adalah rights center said in a statement that Avila and Abu Keshek are being subjected to ill-treatment, psychological torture, and threats of death or 100-year imprisonment in Israeli prisons.

Adalah remarks come following a visit by lawyers Hadeel Abu Saleh and Lubna Touma to Shikma Prison in southern Israel, where the two activists are being held.

It added that the two activists have entered their sixth day of a hunger strike, consuming only water, in protest against their illegal abduction from international waters while participating in a humanitarian mission aimed at breaking the illegal blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip.

Avila told his lawyers that he was subjected to “repeated interrogations, each lasting up to eight hours, during which the interrogators made explicit threats against him, saying he would either be killed or spend 100 years in prison.”

The activists are being held “in an extremely cold facility and are blindfolded every time they are moved outside their cells, even during medical examinations.”

It concluded: “Adalah continues to demand their immediate and unconditional release and an end to these illegal procedures.”

Abu Keshek and Avila were among 175 activists aboard more than 20 boats raided and intercepted on Thursday while en route to Gaza in an attempt to defy the Israeli siege.

The activists were taken to Israel for questioning and possible prosecution, according to a statement from the Global Sumud Flotilla coalition on Sunday.

The flotilla’s first ships, carrying humanitarian aid, left Barcelona on April 12, while the main fleet set sail from the Italian island of Sicily on April 26, aiming to break Israel’s years-long blockade of Gaza.

Israel has imposed a crippling blockade on the Gaza Strip since 2007, leaving the territory’s 2.4 million people on the verge of starvation.

It launched a brutal two-year offensive on Gaza in October 2023, killing more than 72,000 people, injuring over 172,000, and causing massive destruction across the besieged territory.