Terror on the Mediterranean: Israel’s Abduction of Thiago Ávila and Saif Abu Keshek Exposes the Zionist Project’s True Face, Once Again
May 8, 2026
Photograph Source: Global Sumud Flotilla
On April 30th Israeli commandos committed an act of state terrosim in international waters off the coast of Crete — more than a thousand kilometers from occupied Palestine. They seized vessels of the Global Sumud Flotilla, detained activists, and singled out two men for special cruelty: Brazilian Thiago Ávila and Spanish-Palestinian Saif Abu Keshek. These two remain imprisoned in Israel without charge. Reports from released activists describe brutal treatment: activists were beaten, kicked, subjected to painful stress positions, and threatened with execution. Many suffered broken bones, head injuries, and deliberate denial of medical care. Thiago and Saif, in particular, have reportedly faced prolonged isolation, harsh interrogation, and physical abuse — a clear attempt to break their spirit and send a message to anyone daring to challenge the siege.
Thiago Ávila’s mother, Teresa Regina de Ávila e Silva, passed away on May 5 while her son remained locked in an Israeli prison cell, unable to say goodbye. In a letter dictated from inside Shikma Prison to his young daughter Teresa and her grandmother’s namesake, Thiago wrote with heartbreaking clarity: “Dear Teresa, I’m sorry for not being home with you right now. Unfortunately your father, your mother, and so many people around the world understood the historical task that we have the responsibility to fulfil. Today over a million children are suffering a genocide, being starved to death, being amputated without anesthesia…” That letter, included in its entirety below and now circulating widely, has become a global symbol of moral courage in the face of Zionist sadism.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez have both demanded their immediate and unconditional release, denouncing the detention as illegal and a flagrant violation of international law. Lula, who has unwaveringly called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, and Sánchez, one of the few European leaders willing to speak truth to power, understand the stakes. Their calls are not mere diplomacy — they are a direct challenge to the impunity Israel has long enjoyed.
Photograph Source: Global Sumud Flotilla
This abduction is the latest chapter in the resilient but brutal history of the Gaza flotillas. Since 2008, international activists have repeatedly tried to break Israel’s illegal naval blockade — imposed in 2007 as collective punishment and calibrated through the infamous “Red Lines” policy that allowed just enough food to keep Palestinians alive but perpetually on the brink of starvation. In 2010, Israeli commandos murdered ten unarmed activists aboard the Mavi Marmara in international waters. Last fall, millions marched across the Mediterranean in support of the current effort — the largest coordinated flotilla campaign ever: the Global Sumud Flotilla, the Thousand Madleens to Gaza, and the Freedom Flotilla.
In Italy, the Palestinian-led Freedom Flotilla Italia is playing a vital and multifaceted role. Its campaign “100 Cities, 100 Ports” departed from the port city of Taranto on May 2nd and is currently underway, combining a sailboat named the Ghassan Kanafani with a mobile caravan that travels from port to port and into inland towns and cities. The initiative is actively providing on-the-ground support for Thiago and Saif while pursuing its core objectives: keeping international awareness focused on the ongoing genocide in Gaza, amplifying Palestinian voices, building a durable solidarity network across Italy, and raising essential funds for the Al Awda Hospital in Gaza, which continues to struggle against all odds to survive and serve the sick and wounded under ongoing attacks and deteriorating conditions.
These flotillas are not provocations. They are a direct challenge to Israel’s illegal siege and the live-streamed genocide that has escalated with total impunity since October 2023. The world has watched children starved, hospitals bombed, and entire families erased — all while Western governments, including Italy and the EU, continue to arm and shield the perpetrator.
The raid in international waters reveals the sadistic arrogance of Zionism. This arrogance was further revealed last week with the disgusting images of Israeli security minister Ben Gvir’s 50th birthday party, where they celebrated with noose draped cakes glorifying colonial conquest and genocide. Israel stands exposed before the eyes of the world not as a legitimate state, but as a European settler-colonial project — an ethno-supremacist enclave built on stolen land. Palestinians are the indigenous Semitic people of the region. The European colonizers who created “Israel” are not. “Make Israel Palestine Again” is not a slogan of revenge or hatred; it is a call for historical justice and decolonization.
This reality is thrown into even sharper relief by the grotesque farce of Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” — a gang of billionaire real-estate speculators and Zionist hucksters dreaming of turning the ruins of Gaza into a luxury “Riviera” while two million Palestinians suffer in tents, face continued bombings, and are denied basic humanitarian aid. This is gangster capitalism unleashed.
The detention of Thiago and Saif, the murder of flotilla activists in 2010, the blockade that starves a population, and the ongoing genocide all flow from the same racist, supremacist logic. Zionism cannot tolerate witnesses. It cannot tolerate solidarity. It must abduct, isolate, beat, and disappear those who dare sail toward Gaza with medicine and truth.
Yet the opposite is happening. International solidarity is exploding. From Brazil to Spain, from Italian ports to streets around the world, the demand is growing louder: Free Thiago and Saif! Free the over 10,000 Palestinian Political Prsioners! Free Marwan Barghouti, Free Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya!
The flotillas continue. The resistance at sea continues. And on land, the movement must intensify. The Zionist project — illegitimate, colonial, and increasingly exposed — is cracking under the weight of its own crimes. The world is watching. History is watching.
Free Thiago and Saif. Break the siege. End the genocide. Free Palestine.
Letter from Thiago to his daughter:
Dear Teresa,
I’m sorry for not being home with you right now.
Unfortunately your father, your mother, and so many people around the world understood the historical task that we have the responsibility to fulfil.
Today over a million children are suffering a genocide, being starved to death, being amputated without anesthesia, and suffering from horrific, hateful ideas, despite not knowing what Zionism and Imperialism is.
I’m sure you miss me too much and all the mothers and fathers of Palestinian children also miss them so much and would give anything to live a life of love, happiness, and joy that every human being deserves, independently of race, religion, ethnicity or any other characteristic.
Your world will be safer because many parents decided to give everything to build this better world for you.
I hope someday you understand that because I love you so much there was nothing more dangerous for you and for other children than living in a world that accepts genocide.
Please remember your father as the person that would sing to you and play the guitar for you to sleep. And when you grow up your mom will also tell you that your father was a revolutionary and that even when facing the most horrific people alive – Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Itamar Ben-Gvir – he stood firm to the belief of building a better world.
Please do not forget Palestine!
With all my love,
Thiago Ávila.
Michael Leonardi lives in Italy and can be reached at michaeleleonardi@gmail.com
Brazil’s president called Israel’s continued detention of Brazilian Thiago Ávila and Spanish-Swedish national Saif Abu Keshek “a serious affront to international law.”
Global Sumud Flotilla members Saif Abu Keshek (left) and Thiago Ávila (right) are seen during a May 5, 2026 court appearance in Ashkelon, Israel.
(Photo by Ilia Yefimovich/AFP via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
May 05, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday condemned Israel’s twice-extended detention of two Global Sumud Flotilla members abducted last week off the coast of Greece while attempting to break the decadeslong Israeli blockade of Gaza and deliver humanitarian aid to its people amid an ongoing genocide.
“Maintaining the imprisonment of Brazilian citizen Thiago Ávila, a member of the Global Sumud Flotilla, is an unjustifiable action by the Israeli government, causes great concern, and must be condemned by all,” Lula said on X.
“The detention of the flotilla activists in international waters had already represented a serious affront to international law,” he added. “For this reason, our government, together with that of Spain, which also had a citizen detained, demands that they receive full guarantees of safety and be immediately released.”
Spain’s government has also condemned Israel’s capture of Abu Keshek and demanded his immediate release, and like Lula, called the detention illegal because it occurred in international waters. Abu Keshek is also a citizen of Sweden, which has not condemned his detention—or even mentioned him by name—but has asked that “the rights of any Swedish citizens will be respected.”
Adalah Legal Center, the Palestinian group in Israel representing Ávila and Abu Keshek, said Tuesday that the Ashkelon Magistrates’ Court approved Israel’s request to extend the pair’s detention through May 10. This, after the court on Sunday prolonged their detention by two days.
“The court’s decision to extend the detention of humanitarian activists abducted in international waters amounts to judicial validation of the state’s lawlessness,” Adalah assertedad, vowing to appeal the decision, which the group said was based on “secret evidence.”
Adalah noted that “because the activists were abducted over 1,000 kilometers away from Gaza and are not Israeli citizens, Israeli domestic law does not apply to them.”
Israel contends that it is enforcing a lawful naval blockade of Gaza Strip, and that under the laws of naval warfare, that blockade can be enforced not only in its territorial waters, but also on the high seas.
Adalah said, “Crucially, the court granted the full six-day extension requested by the state without imposing any limitations or judicial constraints on the interrogation period,” adding that the stated purpose of their continued detention is further interrogation.
“Ávila reported being subjected to repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours,” the group reported. “Interrogators have explicitly threatened him, stating he would either be ‘killed’ or ‘spend 100 years in jail.’”
“Both activists remain in total isolation, subjected to 24/7 high-intensity lighting in their cells, and kept blindfolded whenever they are moved, including during medical examinations,” Adalah said, accusing interrogators of “trying all the time to connect the humanitarian aid with Hamas to present it as a service to Hamas.”
Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs claims that both men were affiliated with the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad, which the US government accuses of “clandestinely acting on behalf of” Hamas, the militant Palestinian resistance group that led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Still, no charges have been filed against the pair, who Adalah said have been on hunger strike since April 30 in protest of their detention.
Abu Keshek and Ávila were among the more than 170 Global Sumud Flotilla members intercepted and seized last week in international waters 45 nautical miles west of the Greek island Kythira and 600 nautical miles from Gaza in what many critics have called an act of piracy.
All of the other flotilla members have been released. Many said they brutally abused by their Israeli captors, who threatened to kill them. The Washington Post reported 34 people—including citizens of Australia, Colombia, Italy, Ukraine, and the United States—required medical attention for broken ribs, noses, and other injuries. Detained activists also said they were denied food and water, and were forced to sleep on deliberately flooded floors. Both Abu Keshek and Ávila had visible facial injuries during their first court appearances.
In a statement issued on Monday, Global Sumud Flotilla said Abu Keshek and Ávila “are being subjected to systemic psychological torture and explicit threats to the lives of their families.”
The statement also noted the growing calls for their release from advocacy organizations and governments.
“We urge the international community and their representatives to immediately take action for the safety and freedom of Saif and Thiago, the freedom of all Palestinian hostages, and the end of Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza and its genocide,” Global Sumud added.
American journalist Alex Colston, who was aboard the flotilla on assignment for Zeteo, said he was beaten by his captors, and corroborated accounts of broken bones, concussion symptoms, and other signs of abuse inflicted by Israeli forces on flotilla members, as well as death threats, property theft, and other mistreatment.
Hannah Smith, a representative of the flotilla’s public affairs team who was also aboard one of the vessels, told Democracy Now! on Monday that, after intercepting the boats, Israeli forces “pointed guns at us. They had lasers pointed at us. We had our hands in the air. They threatened lethal force.”
“Many people were subject to aggressive physical force,” she said. “We were denied access to adequate water. We were denied access to sanitary supplies.”
Smith continued:
The nights were extremely cold. People’s jackets were stolen. When I advocated for one of the participants, who’s a doctor, who was pacing for two hours trying to stay warm—she had a short-sleeve shirt in like 50-degree weather that was cold and damp. When I advocated for blankets, they flooded the sleeping area. And then we had a dozen people pacing, trying to stay warm, trying not to get hypothermia.
When we nonviolently resisted, many people were beat. Many people were dragged. I was held in a stress position for many hours... I heard people screaming. I heard people being dragged around. And it was absolutely horrifying.
The reports of torture and other abuse are consistent with Israeli forces’ brutal treatment of members of past Gaza flotillas, including Ávila, who has taken part in at least three such missions. Victims have included Swedish climate campaigner Greta Thunberg, who was allegedly dragged, beaten, and made to kiss an Israeli flag in which she was allegedly wrapped after Israeli forces intercepted last October’s Global Sumud mission.
It’s not just activists who reported Israeli brutality. Journalist Noa Avishag Schnal—who was covering last October’s flotilla—described rape threats and being “hung from the metal shackles on my wrists and ankles and beaten in the stomach, back, face, ear, and skull by a group of men and women guards, one of whom sat on my neck and face, blocking my airways.”
In 2010, Israeli forces raided one of the first Freedom Flotilla Coalition convoys carrying humanitarian aid intended for Gaza, which Israel blockaded three years earlier. The Israeli attackers killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, including Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan.
In a letter to his daughter dictated to his lawyer from prison, Ávila said, “I’m sorry for not being home with you right now.”
“Today over a million children are suffering a genocide, being starved to death, being amputated without anesthesia, and suffering from horrific, hateful ideas, despite not knowing what Zionism and Imperialism is,” he continued.
More than 250,000 Palestinians have been killed or wounded by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 2023. Around 2 million others have been forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza, and Israel is facing an International Court of Justice genocide case filed by South Africa and formally supported by numerous nations, including Brazil and Spain.
“Your world will be safer because many parents decided to give everything to build this better world for you,” Ávila added. “I hope someday you understand that because I love you so much there was nothing more dangerous for you and for other children than living in a world that accepts genocide.”
Israeli forces intercepted and detained at least 175 people off the coast of Greece, including 14 Americans, some of whom reportedly suffered broken bones and other injuries.
US Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) speaks at a Jewish-led pro-Palesine demonstration outside the Capitol in Washington DC, on October 18, 2023.
(Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Brett Wilkins
May 05, 2026
COMMON DREAMS
Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and 18 other House Democrats on Tuesday condemned the US State Department’s failure to protect 14 Americans aboard the latest humanitarian aid convoy seized by Israeli forces en route to Gaza, as well as the agency’s threat to punish US participants in the flotilla.
“On Wednesday April 29, 2026, Israeli military forces illegally intercepted and attacked nearly two dozen civilian vessels in international waters and abducted at least 175 unarmed humanitarians, journalists, and solidarity activists taking part in the Global Sumud Flotilla, a brave effort to end the Israeli government’s ongoing starvation blockade of Gaza and deliver essential food and medical aid, establish a humanitarian corridor, and save lives,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
“This attack on a civilian humanitarian mission involving participants from over 55 countries, including the United States, conducted an unprecedented 600 miles into international waters, is a grave violation of international law,” the letter states. “It demands action and accountability from the United States to protect abducted US citizens, to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza enduring forced starvation, and an end to the decades of impunity that enable these crimes.”
The lawmakers continued:
We are outraged that instead of speaking out and taking action to ensure the safety and immediate release of the at least 14 US citizens illegally abducted by the Israeli military, the Department of State went out of its way to issue a formal condemnation of their humanitarian efforts, smearing them with libelous falsehoods that expose them to greater danger and violence and threatening allied countries who allow port access to this humanitarian mission. This is an abdication of your duty to protect the safety of all Americans and is an Orwellian distortion where providing food to the hungry is terror and forced starvation is peace.
While we are relieved by reporting that most abducted flotilla passengers have now been released and will not be forced to suffer the abuse and inhumane conditions endured for days by participants of the previous flotilla illegally detained in Israeli prison, we are disturbed by reports that abductees were violently abused while held on Israeli vessels and that multiple US citizens have been hospitalized following their release. After all this, it is extremely alarming that US participants in the flotilla may face additional unjust persecution upon their return home.
Numerous people aboard the flotilla reported being brutally beaten by their captors, with some allegedly suffering broken ribs, noses, and other injuries, some of which reportedly required hospitalization.
Instead of assisting US victims, State Department spokesperson Thomas Piggott said his agency “will explore using available tools to impose consequences on those who provide support to this pro-Hamas flotilla.”
The lawmakers’ letter calls on Rubio and the Trump administration “to rescind these threats against flotilla participants, their supporters, and states that open their ports to this humanitarian mission and urge you to use your immense leverage to secure the freedom of all passengers who continue to be illegally detained.”
“Above all else, we urge you to address the issue at the root of this voyage: the brutal Israeli blockade and genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza,” the Democrats said.
“The ongoing forced starvation of the Palestinian population in Gaza is a direct result of the Israeli government’s siege and blockade of the territory, which continues to impede the entry of food and humanitarian aid in flagrant violation of legally binding orders from the International Court of Justice,” they continued.
“Likewise, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry has determined that the Israeli government is committing the crime of genocide in Gaza and that this blockade is deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the Palestinian people in whole or in part,” the letter notes.
“While the Trump administration fails to use its immense leverage to end this blockade and fulfill the United States’ binding legal obligations under the Genocide Convention, the activists on board the flotilla are an example of profound solidarity and humanitarianism,” the lawmakers added. “Undeterred by this latest attack, additional flotilla ships continue their mission to deliver aid to Gaza. We call on you to deter any further hostile actions against the flotilla and ensure the successful completion of its humanitarian mission.”
Earlier Tuesday, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva condemned Israel’s twice-extended detention of two Global Sumud Flotilla members—Thiago Ávila of Brazil and Spanish-Swedish national Saif Abu Keshek—who Israeli authorities claim without providing evidence are linked to the Palestinian militant resistance group Hamas. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has also condemned the activists’ abduction and demanded their release, as have numerous humanitarian groups and advocates around the world.
In addition to Tlaib—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—the letter was signed by Reps. Mark Pocan (Wis.), Delia Ramirez (Ill.), Ro Khanna (Calif.), Jesús “Chuy” García (Ill.), André Carson (Ind.), Jim McGovern (Mass.), Pramila Jayapal (Wash.), Greg Casar (Texas), Henry “Hank” Johnson (Ga.), Nydia Velásquez (NY), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), Maxine Dexter (Ore.), Summer Lee (Pa.), Ilhan Omar (Minn.), Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ), Al Green (Texas), Lateefah Simon (Calif.), and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY).
