Greta Thunberg lands in Greece with expelled Gaza flotilla activists

Swedish activistic Greta Thunberg landed successful Greece connected Monday alongside scores of chap campaigners expelled from Israel aft trying to vessel assistance to Gaza, AFP journalists saw.

The 22-year-old clime campaigner was 1 of hundreds of radical who had boarded a flotilla that tried to interruption done an Israeli blockade of the war-stricken territory, with galore complaining connected their instrumentality to Europe of mistreatment astatine the hands of the Israeli authorities.

Thunberg and 160 others landed astatine Athens International Airport, where crowds of activists welcomed them.

She called the Global Sumud Flotilla “the biggest ever effort to interruption Israel’s amerciable and inhumane siege by sea”.

“That this ngo has to beryllium is simply a shame,” she added, urging the world to enactment to forestall Israel’s “genocide” of the Palestinians.

“We are not adjacent seeing the bare minimum from our governments,” Thunberg said.

Activists unfurled a immense Palestinian emblem successful the arrivals hallway and chanted: “Freedom for Palestine” and “Long unrecorded the flotilla!”

Parliamentarian ‘beaten’ 

One of those landing successful Greece, Rima Hassan, a French-Palestinian subordinate of the European Parliament, reported having been deed by Israeli constabulary aft the flotilla was intercepted.

“I was beaten by two constabulary officers when they enactment maine successful the van,” she told AFP.

Hassan said she and different detainees were kept successful groups of up to 15 per compartment connected mattresses successful a high-security Israeli prison.

Yasmin Acar, a subordinate of the flotilla’s steering committee, said the detainees were “treated similar animals” and “terrorists”.

“We were physically assaulted, we were deprived of sleep,” Acar said.

“We did not person immoderate cleanable water. The archetypal 48 hours, there was nary food, nary water astatine all.”

Israel has rejected the accusations of mistreatment arsenic untrue.

The Greek overseas ministry said the “special repatriation flight” that landed successful Athens carried 27 Greeks and 134 different nationals from 15 European countries.

Israel’s overseas ministry said connected Monday it had deported 171 activists wide to Greece and Slovakia.

Bratislava’s overseas ministry confirmed that 1 Slovak had returned to the cardinal European country, on with 9 different radical from the Netherlands, Canada and the United States.

The flotilla departed from Barcelona successful Spain successful aboriginal September and was intercepted by the Israeli navy disconnected Egypt past week.

Israel has branded the flotilla an offshoot of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist question that it is battling to destruct successful Gaza.

It said the boats violated a prohibited zone and that small humanitarian assistance was recovered connected committee the vessels.

Israeli constabulary said much than 470 radical aboard the flotilla boats were arrested.

Israel’s overseas ministry told AFP that 138 flotilla participants remained successful detention successful Israel.

Thirteen Brazilians are among them, including three who are holding a hunger strike, a spokeswoman for the Brazilian delegation successful the flotilla, Lara Souza, told AFP.

Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva demanded successful a station connected X that this “absurd situation extremity arsenic σύντομα arsenic possible” and the Brazilians beryllium released.

He said that Israel had “violated planetary law” by intercepting the flotilla “and it continues to perpetrate violations by keeping them detained”.

Source: AFP