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“Let me be very clear. There is a genocide going on,” Thunberg told the crowd at the Athens airport, referring to Israeli military action in Gaza.
Israel, which rejects accusations it is carrying out genocide in Gaza and says reports of hunger there are exaggerated, has dismissed the flotilla as a publicity stunt benefiting Hamas. It had previously detained Thunberg at sea in a similar attempt to breach the blockade in June.
Israel’s foreign ministry issued a statement, accompanied by photos of Thunberg at the airport, saying all participants’ legal rights had been upheld and the only violence involved an activist who bit a female medic at Israel’s Ketziot prison.
Deported activists allege mistreatment
Among nine members of the flotilla who arrived home in Switzerland, some alleged sleep deprivation, lack of water and food, as well as some being beaten, kicked and locked in a cage, the group representing them said in a statement.
Swedish activists said last week that Thunberg was shoved and forced to wear an Israeli flag during her detention, while others said they had clean food and water withheld and had their medication and belongings confiscated.
Israel’s foreign ministry issued a statement, accompanied by photos of Greta Thunberg at the airport, saying all participants’ legal rights had been upheld. Source: AAP / Petros Giannakouris/AP
After Thunberg arrived in Athens, she said she could “talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment, trust me, but that is not the story”.
“What happened here was that Israel, while continuing to worsen and escalate their genocide and mass destruction with genocidal intent, attempting to erase an entire population, an entire nation in front of our very eyes, they once again violated international law by preventing humanitarian aid from getting into Gaza while people are being starved,” she said.
