“Shooting fish in a barrel.” Tasers. Rape. This is what Israel allegedly just did to many of the hundreds of activists, humanitarians, and journalists it abducted after illegally intercepting the Global Sumud Flotilla that was seeking to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza and bring aid to the Palestinian people.
Zeteo contributor Alex Colston was among those detained by Israeli forces. He gives Prem his first-hand account of what he saw and endured inside Israeli imprisonment. And the details are shocking.
“You could hear people screaming” at every checkpoint in the prison facilities, Alex says. He was in the room when Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir gleefully harassed detainees – a moment that went viral and sparked international condemnation. Alex says viral videos may not have captured other abuses, including that soldiers blared the national anthem over and over as they escorted (and tortured) the detainees through different checkpoints.
Colston himself lost feeling in his hands due to Israeli soldiers cuffing them tightly and then using the handcuffs to torture him, again and again. At one point, he said he “just blacked out” because of the extreme pain. When he came to, a guard asked if he was from the US. “I said yes, and he was like, ‘Well, this is my country’. And then he hit me in the ribs a couple times.’”
Watch the video above to hear much more of what Alex saw inside Israel’s abduction and detention of the Gaza aid flotilla volunteers.
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NOTE: Alex participated in this interview in a public setting to have access to Wi-Fi. We apologize for the increased background noise you hear throughout the conversation.
Read Alex's previous reporting from the latest flotilla:
