KINGSTON, N.Y. — A Kingston native who was arrested by Israeli officials while attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza reflected on his experience in a phone interview about one month after his release from Israeli custody.
A former Clearwater captain, Liam Henrie, 32, was captured on board a humanitarian aid flotilla operated by the Global Sumud Flotilla. The sailboat, called La Cirena and loaded with food and medical supplies, was bound for the Gaza Strip on Monday, May 18, when it was boarded by Israeli Navy personnel who arrested Henrie and the entire crew, he said.
From left, former Clearwater crew members Brigid Slattery, Fredrique Guevara-Prip, and Liam Henrie are seen in an undated photo. (Photo by Rory Kane)
Henrie’s activism began after Hamas’ brutal attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and what he called a “drastically disproportionate” response. The Israeli response led him to risk arrest and injury on the flotilla, he said. Still, Henrie added, “What happened (in Israel on Oct. 7) was really awful, and I, obviously, I don’t like support that,” he said.
Henrie compared the Israeli response to the Oct. 7 attack to the United States’ reaction to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “I believe that both events were themselves responses to decades of Western violence and imperialism rather than some sort of irrational, purely ideological or religiously motivated extremism. Also … the responses to them were (are) drastically disproportionate,” he said in an email sent after his Freeman interview.
“I don’t think 9/11 in any way justified the subsequent murder and destruction wrought by the US and allies in the Middle East,” Henrie added. “I just want to be clear about that because many people are comparing them in an attempt to justify Israel’s actions, presuming that both are fundamentally extremist acts of unilateral agression. … I felt sad on October 7th and I also was not surprised by (how) immediately Israelis started to use it as a, as an excuse to evacuate and to kill a lot of people.”
He said both attacks do not “justify the resultant massively (disproportionate) death tolls (in Gaza). In other words I think the comparison is ‘apt’ as I said, just not for the reason pro-Israel persons might claim.”
Henrie said he has been aware of and sympathetic toward the “struggle of the Palestinian people” for years, adding that, “For a long time, I felt kind of powerless and didn’t really have an idea of what, I could do to help.”
When a friend told him about the flotilla, Henrie said, “I signed up and away I went.”
“We were totally aware … almost a guarantee that we would get captured,” he said. “We wanted to get to Gaza. There was always hope that “a level of public pressure against the Israelis would be sufficient. … You know, maybe (they’d) hesitate to stop us, but that obviously ended up not being the case. I was aware of the danger and was aware that I could get tortured … possibly even killed. I didn’t think that, they would kill anyone … but there was always a possibility. … And so I, yeah, I guess I was, I was willing to, to risk that.”
The ship Henrie was on had a crew of seven on a 40- to 50-foot sailboat and was boarded by members of the Israeli Navy in international waters about 190 miles from Gaza, he said. The flotilla included boats from Spain, Italy, Greece, and Turkey, he added.
Henrie said the sailboat he was on was carrying pasta, rice, dried beans, and some school supplies, he said. ”We had a couple of backpacks with like notebooks and things like that. … Some boats were carrying medical supplies (and) baby formula. There were, you know, basic everyday medications” and first aid supplies.
After boarding the sailboat, Henri said the sailors intercepted the ship’s radio and threw much of the supplies bound for Gaza overboard.
“We were approached by a small speedboat, full of soldiers. They come alongside. … So we have our hands up,” Henrie said. There were no weapons on the flotilla, he said.
Henrie said he and others on his boat were there when Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunted the captured activists. In one video, released by Ben-Gvir, the activists are shown with their hands behind their backs, kneeling, with their heads touching the floor in what looks like a makeshift detention area and on the deck of a ship.
“We had no weapons. … We took care, not even to bring things that could potentially be construed as weapons. Like we didn’t have kitchen knives.” Additionally, he said, “We made no effort whatsoever to defend ourselves. … We just put our hands in the air and we, you know, basically do what they ask us to do.”
The crew was made to sit on the front of the boat where and were soaked by 5-foot waves hitting the ship, Henrie said. “They had us sit in the front of the boats (and) drove the boat back to the prison ship,” he said. They were told to remove their shoes (and) they took took a lot of our, you know, like, warmer clothing off. ”
Once on the prison ship, they were shuttled to Israel.
“We were taken to this kind of administrative process in the port, uh, this city called Ashdod, which is Israel’s largest port. … I was on the prison boat for about two days and that was like pretty brutal,” with the crews forced to remain in shipping containers, he said.
“We were forced to kneel on deck, you know, let our heads down. We were searched, many of us had more of our clothing removed. I was basically in my underwear. I was just like in, like socks and underwear shirt. … I was led into the shipping container that led into the enclosure. … They had me on the ground, they were kicking me. And they did that for a couple of minutes. … Many people were treated even worse. A lot of people got tased repeatedly. … We were all behaving in the way that we’ve been trained to behave, which was to be nonviolent,” Henrie said.
“Also, people get angry when things like this are happening to them, but by and large, you know, there was never any point where anybody, you know, hit back,” he added.
Henrie was held on the prison ship for two days and on land in Israel for about 24 hours before being sent to Turkey. He flew home from there.
Now, Henrie said, governments in Germany, the United Kingdom and the U.S. are attempting to criminalize pro-Palestinian work. That, he said, “is going to make everybody, including me, think twice about continuing to participate in things like this.”
Still, Henrie added, “It has me emphasizing that like they still treated us better than they treat Palestinians. … But they didn’t treat us well, and it was, it was really awful, and I would definitely say that I would certainly think twice about doing it again.”
The interception of the flotilla has since been condemned by several world leaders, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calling the Israeli action “piracy and banditry” that were “carried out with a fascist mentality.” Spain’s Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, called the action “a violation of international law.”
Albares also joined the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Türkiye, Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Jordan, Libya, and the Maldives in a joint statement on X condemning the interception of the flotilla.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.