In early October 2025, after Israeli authorities arrested more than 400 activists including Greta Thunberg, a claim circulated online that the authorities mistreated Thunberg and other detainees before deporting them.
The activists were sailing to Gaza as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which aimed to create a humanitarian corridor to the war-torn territory. Israel has tightly controlled the flow of goods and aid into and out of Gaza since at least 2007.
After being deported, Thunberg said she and other activists suffered “mistreatment and abuses” during their custody. Days before her release, The Guardian reported that Thunberg had suffered dehydration and hunger and had been “forced to hold flags while pictures were taken.”
Several other activists corroborated the claims made in The Guardian’s report. Some said Israeli authorities forced Thunberg to kiss the Israeli flag and humiliated and mistreated her.
The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed “claims regarding the mistreatment of Greta Thunberg and other detainees from the Hamas–Sumud flotilla” as “brazen lies.” Meanwhile, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the country’s security minister, called the activists “terrorists” and said he would have preferred to see them imprisoned in Israel for months.
Snopes could not independently verify the correspondence that gave rise to The Guardian’s reporting or Thunberg and other activists’ accounts of their detainment in Israel.

In early October 2025, a claim (archived) circulated online that Israeli authorities mistreated climate activist Greta Thunberg following her arrest aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla bound for Gaza. Thunberg was among 462 activists from 45 countries sailing as part of a flotilla that aimed to create a humanitarian corridor to Gaza. 

Since at least 2007, Israel has imposed a blockade on Gaza that has prevented the movement of goods and aid to the Palestinian people. On Aug. 22, 2025, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the foremost authority on global food security confirmed a famine was ongoing in Gaza.

Social media users shared posts about Thunberg’s reported mistreatment in Israeli custody after Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said (archived) on Oct. 2, 2025, it had intercepted the flotilla and would take activists on board to Israel before deporting them to Europe.

One Reddit post (archived) claimed “Israeli authorities have beaten Greta Thunberg, made her kiss Zionist flag.”

Israeli authorities have beaten Greta Thunberg, made her kiss Zionist flag
byu/crustose_lichen inclimate

Claims about Thunberg’s alleged mistreatment also circulated on X (archived), Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived) and Bluesky (archived). Snopes readers wrote in asking whether the claims were true.

At the time of this writing, Thunberg (archived) and other activists had spoken publicly about the alleged abuse and mistreatment they said they suffered at the hands of Israeli authorities while awaiting deportation. 

On Oct. 4, 2025, the U.K. newspaper The Guardian reported an alleged correspondence between the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden and “people close to Thunberg.” According to this alleged correspondence, Thunberg had suffered dehydration and “received insufficient amounts of both water and food.” Additionally, members of Israeli foces reportedly forced Thunberg to “hold flags while pictures were taken.” In an Oct. 5, 2025, statement (archived) the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel called the accounts “brazen lies” and claimed the “ludicrous and baseless allegations” never occurred.

Snopes could not independently confirm or debunk accounts of mistreatment by the Israeli authorities who held the arrested flotilla activists. When asked whether it could confirm the authenticity of the correspondence reported in The Guardian article, the Press Office of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs said in an emailed statement: “We have received reports of abusive treatment, which Israel strenuously denies. If those reports are accurate it is a serious matter.” Given the above, we leave this claim unrated.

We reached out to Thunberg to establish the authenticity of The Guardian’s reported correspondence and allegations. We also reached out to Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the country’s prison service to ask it for any further comment on the allegations of mistreatment, specifically those from the Guardian article. We reached out to the Global Sumud Flotilla and Adalah, a nongovernmental organization whose legal counsel visited several activists in detention, to ask what they knew about the alleged mistreatment of detained activists. We await replies to our queries.

Activists corroborated Thunberg’s allegation

After being deported to Greece on Oct. 6, 2025, Thunberg told the media, “I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment, trust me, but that is not the story.” Days later, in a video uploaded to her Instagram account, Thunberg repeated (archived) the allegation, saying (at 1:25), “What Israel did was mainly not to illegally abduct us in international waters and abuse us in prison, but it was that it stopped a humanitarian mission and violated international law.”

Thunberg had not publicly confirmed the specific details of the alleged abuse reported by The Guardian at the time of this writing.

Accounts from several other activists who said they were detained with Thunberg corroborated details from The Guardian’s report. 

On Oct. 4, Israel said (archived) it deported 137 of the flotilla activists to Turkey. Also on that date, Ersin Çelik, a Turkish journalist who filed reports from aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, told CNN Türk that Israeli authorities “mistreated Greta. She’s just a little girl, Greta. They made her crawl. They made her kiss the Israeli flag.”

Lorenzo D’Agostino, an Italian journalist and activist whom Anadolu Agency interviewed in Istanbul Airport, said, “Greta Thunberg, a brave woman was only 22 years old, she was humiliated and wrapped in an Israeli flag and exhibited like a trophy.”

Semanur Sönmez, a Turkish activist, corroborated Çelik’s account that Israeli forces had made Thunberg kiss an Israeli flag during a CNN Türk broadcast published on Oct. 6. Evie Snedker, a British activist, told Anadolu Agency in London on Oct. 7 that Thunberg “was made to sit on her own in the back corner and they surrounded her with Israeli flags and laughing and jeering and just terrible behavior.”

Çelik, D’Agostino, Sönmez and Snedker all said Israeli authorities had withheld food and water during their detentions. Further activists from Spain, Switzerland and Malaysia also complained of poor treatment in Israeli detention, according to news reports.

Adalah corroborated (archived) these accounts. In a video published on the group’s Telegram channel on Oct. 6, legal counsel Lubna Tuma said she had visited flotilla activists in Israeli detention. According to Tuma, those activists also said they had been denied medical care and were made to sit in painful positions for long stretches of time.

Ben-Gvir had dubbed activists ‘terrorists’

Though the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Israel repeatedly said in X posts that the detained activists were “safe” and in good health, it was unclear whether Israel’s policy on how it treated flotilla activists had recently changed (archived, archived, archived).

In June 2025, Thunberg sailed on the Madleen, another activist boat that aimed to deliver aid to Gaza. Israeli authorities boarded the Madleen on June 9 and deported (archived) Thunberg on June 10. Though Israeli authorities held some activists longer than Thunberg, it did not appear Thunberg or others had publicly complained about mistreatment while detained.

Following the Global Sumud Flotilla arrests in early October, a video (archived) circulated in Israeli media of Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir surveying the detained activists and calling them “terrorists.” Ben-Gvir, whose ministry oversees prisons in Israel, also said (archived) in an Oct. 3 statement that the activists “should be kept here in Israeli prison for a few months so they can get a taste of what it’s like in the terrorist wing.” 

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Oct. 5 that some activists remained in the country because they themselves “refused to expedite their deportation.” According to Israeli media, Thunberg was among activists who refused to sign a document that would allow her to bypass Israel’s mandatory 72-hour hold time before deportation.

In sum …

At the time of this writing, Israeli authorities roundly dismissed the accounts of several activists, including Thunberg herself, that they were mistreated and abused in Israeli custody. The Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs had not confirmed alleged official correspondence that claimed Thunberg had suffered from dehydration and hunger and had been “forced to hold flags while pictures were taken.” Several activists corroborated claims of abuse and mistreatment and said Israeli authorities taunted Thunberg with Israeli flags.

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not directly address any single accusation but dismissed “claims regarding the mistreatment of Greta Thunberg” as “brazen lies.”

DeepL.com provided translations from Hebrew and Turkish into English.

Sources

Anadolu Agency. “Italian Journalist D’Agostino, from the Global Sumud Flotilla, Told AA about the Process He Exper…” YouTube, 4 Oct. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGr7y3QAVV0&t=25s.

Bir, Burak. “Gaza Flotilla Activist Recounts ‘terrible Behavior’ of Israeli Soldiers, Thanks Türkiye.” Anadolu Agency, 7 Oct. 2025, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/gaza-flotilla-activist-recounts-terrible-behavior-of-israeli-soldiers-thanks-turkiye/3709396.

CNN TÜRK. “Journalist Ersin Çelik Reveals Israel’s Torture! ‘They Didn’t Give Us Water or Bread.'” YouTube, 4 Oct. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7GaI3UT2VU&t=432s.

———. “‘They Made Greta Thunberg Kiss the Israeli Flag’ Activist Semanur Sönmez Yaman Recounted Those Mo…” YouTube, 6 Oct. 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3x14iTy1L8&t=522s.

“Greta Thunberg Mistreated by Israeli Forces in Detention, Activists Say.” Al Jazeera, 4 Oct. 2025, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/4/greta-thunberg-mistreated-by-israeli-forces-in-detention-activists-say.

Gritten, David. “Israel Deports Greta Thunberg and 170 Other Gaza Flotilla Activists.” BBC News, 6 Oct. 2025, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg7dk52l1jvo.

“International Pressure Mounts over Gaza Blockade.” Oxfam International, 18 May 2014, https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/international-pressure-mounts-over-gaza-blockade.

“IPC Overview and Classification System.” IPC Overview and Classification System, https://www.ipcinfo.org/ipcinfo-website/ipc-overview-and-classification-system/en/.

“ISRAEL’S CRIMES AGAINST THE GLOBAL SUMUD FLOTILLA HUMANITARIAN ACTIVISTS.” Global Sumud Flotilla, https://globalsumudflotilla.org/media/press/Israeli%20Crimes%20Against%20the%20Flotilla%20Activists..pdf.

“Israel’s Interception of Madleen and Detention of Crew Bound for Gaza Flouts International Law.” Amnesty International, 9 Jun. 2025, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/06/israels-interception-of-madleen-and-detention-of-crew-flouts-international-law/.

Sevencan, Seda. “Turkish Activist Says Israeli Forces Subjected Greta Thunberg to Severe Torture in Detention.” Anadolu Agency, 4 Oct. 2025, https://www.aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/turkish-activist-says-israeli-forces-subjected-greta-thunberg-to-severe-torture-in-detention/3707810.

Sharon, Jeremy. “Greta Thunberg Has Not Met Lawyer since Being Processed by Immigration Authorities.” Times of Israel, 5 Oct. 2025, https://www.timesofisrael.com/greta-thunberg-has-not-met-lawyer-since-being-processed-by-immigration-authorities/#:~:text=Thunberg%20did%20not%20sign%20a%20document%2C%20presented%20to%20all%20activists%2C%20which%20would%20have%20enabled%20her%20to%20be%20deported%20before%20a%20mandatory%2072%2Dhour%20detention%20period%20from%20the%20time%20of%20arrival%20in%20Israel%20expires.

Sherlock, Ruth. “Famine Confirmed in Northern Gaza, Says U.N.-Backed Panel.” NPR, 22 Aug. 2025. Goats and Soda. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2025/08/22/nx-s1-5509964/famine-gaza-israel-middle-east-un.

Tondo, Lorenzo, and Damian Carrington. “Israel Accused of Detaining Greta Thunberg in Infested Cell and Making Her Hold Flags.” The Guardian, 4 Oct. 2025. World News. The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/04/greta-thunberg-israel-gaza-sweden.