COMMENTARY: By Cole Martin in Occupied Bethlehem
Many people have been closely following the journey this week of the Madleen, a small humanitarian yacht seeking to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza with a crew of 12 on board, including humanitarian activists and journalists.
This morning we woke to the harrowing, yet not unexpected, news that the vessel had been illegally hijacked by Israeli forces, who boarded and took the crew captive into Israeli territories, in contravention of international law.
Yet another on the long list of war crimes Israel has committed over the last 20 months of genocide, and decades of illegal occupation.
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Communication with the crew was lost after the final moments of tense onboard footage as they donned lifejackets, threw phones and other sensitive data overboard, and raised their arms in preparation for whatever might come next.
Israel has a detailed history of attacking all previous freedom flotillas — including the 2010 mission aboard the Mavi Marmara in which 10 crew were killed and dozens more injured when Israeli forces hijacked the humanitarian vessel.
Another mission earlier this year was cut short when it was targeted by an airstrike in international waters, injuring crew.
The next updates were scenes filmed by Israeli forces which appear to show them calmly handing bread rolls and water to the detained crew, painting a picture which immediately recalled my own experience last year being unlawfully arrested in the southern West Bank.
Detained while documenting
I was detained while documenting armed settler violence, taken illegally to a military base where myself and three other internationals were given a bathroom stop, bread and water.
While we ate, they filmed us, saying “You are unharmed, yes? We are looking after you well?”
We were then loaded into a police van where a Palestinian farmer sat blindfolded, in silence, with his hands zip-tied behind him.
Israel loves to put on a show of their “humane treatment” when internationals are present and cameras are rolling, but it’s a shallow and sinister facade for their abusive racism and cruelty towards Palestinians.
It appears their response to the Madleen’s crew over the next few days will be exactly that. Don’t buy into it; this is no more than deeply sinister propaganda to cover state-backed racism, supremacy, and cruelty.
Families in Gaza are still facing indiscriminate airstrikes, continuous displacement, forced starvation, and the phony Israel/US “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation” which has led to more than 100 civilians being shot while desperately seeking food.
Thousands of trucks still wait at the border to Gaza, barred entry by Israeli forces, while Palestinians face severe malnutrition and a man-made famine.
The New Zealand government has still not placed a single sanction on the Israeli state.
Cole Martin is an independent New Zealand photojournalist based in the Middle East and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report.
