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\nDr Margaret Connolly (C) pictured with members of the Global Sumud Flotilla after arriving at Istanbul Airport in Turkey<\/p>\n
The video of Israeli authorities’ treatment of flotilla protesters has “accelerated” the mood at EU level for action against Israel, Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin has said.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said there was “a lot of anger” across the EU at the video of the Gaza aid flotilla protesters’ treatment, which he said had “shocked the world”.<\/p>\n
He was speaking after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris, after which he said Mr Macron “shared my concerns with the behaviour of Israel”.<\/p>\n
In a video shared on social media, Israel’s national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir is seen walking among some of the detainees and saying they should remain in prison for a long time.<\/p>\n
The footage shows some people kneeling on the ground in tightly packed groups with their hands tied behind their backs.<\/p>\n
The video and the detention of the flotilla participants has been condemned by senior Irish Government figures and across the European Union.<\/p>\n
Watch: Itamar Ben-Gvir posted video taunting flotilla activists<\/p>\n
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The Taoiseach’s comments came as Israel said it had deported all foreign activists seized by Israeli forces from a Gaza-bound flotilla.<\/p>\n
More than 430 activists from countries around the world, including Ireland, had been placed in detention in Israel after they were intercepted at sea on Monday while making the latest in a string of attempts to break the blockade of the Palestinian territory.<\/p>\n
Minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee said that 14 Irish citizens were deported, while one other Irish person “was on a different boat that was redirected” and is not part of the group brought to Ramon Airport in Israel’s far south.<\/p>\n
The activists arrived in Turkey this evening after they were deported from Israel. The Irish activists are not expected to return home until tomorrow.<\/p>\n
Speaking to reporters after arriving in Turkey, activists said that they were subject to abuse during their time in detention.<\/p>\n
\nDr Margaret Connolly (C) pictured with members of the Global Sumud Flotilla after arriving at Istanbul Airport in Turkey<\/p>\n
Many of the activists were barefoot, saying they were not given shoes to wear, and many of them had bruises on their wrists, black eyes and wounds in various parts of their body, including some on their forehead.<\/p>\n
All of them were wearing grey jumpers and tracksuits they were given during detention.<\/p>\n
Among the Irish citizens on the flotilla was Dr Margaret Connolly, sister of President Catherine Connolly.<\/p>\n
“This barbaric, cruel regime must be disbanded,” she said after arriving in Turkey.<\/p>\n
“United States and Germany are funding it 100%, with the backing of England, France, and all the Western governments, who are a white menace, spreading pestilence and violence wherever they go.”<\/p>\n
Mikey Cullen, an Irish activist who was also on board the flotilla, said that when they were intercepted they were “met with levels of such violence”.<\/p>\n
“And the fact that Israel would do that to us with the world on us, I can only imagine what they do to Palestinian prisoners,” he said.<\/p>\n
Watch: Irish activists who were on flotilla speak to media after arriving in Turkey<\/p>\n
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Speaking in Paris, the Taoiseach described the treatment of the activists as “appalling and disgusting behaviour”.<\/p>\n
“First of all, they were abducted in international waters, the way they had been treated in captivity is unacceptable, and then the behaviour of a government minister from Israel has been absolutely shocking, and has shocked the world.<\/p>\n
“But add to that, which is far worse in our view, is the failure to fulfil phase one of the peace agreement, in terms of getting really significant volumes of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and then the continuing violence, elimination and displacement of Palestinians on the West Bank.<\/p>\n
Watch: ‘The mood is changing’ for EU action against Israel, says Taoiseach<\/p>\n
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“So I think that the mood is changing. The precise mechanisms, if agreed on, or will be examined by Europe, remain to be determined.”<\/p>\n
Asked if the video had shifted the mood at EU level towards taking action against Israel, Mr Martin said: “I think it has accelerated the momentum, and I think it’s created a lot of anger, because a lot of what you would have witnessed yesterday was not co-ordinated – individual prime ministers came out themselves in respect of their own citizens and in the context of what they witnessed on that video, so there’s this clear change in mood.”<\/p>\n
‘Completely unacceptable’<\/p>\n
Minister McEntee said she thought that anyone who saw the footage of the activists detained will know that the way they were handled and detained was “completely unacceptable”.<\/p>\n
When asked on RT\u00c9’s Today with David McCullagh if any of the Irish citizens suffered mistreatment, the minister said that has not been brought to her department’s attention.<\/p>\n
“As far as we are aware and the contact we have had … is that there are no injuries of that kind,” she said.<\/p>\n
“We have engaged directly with the Israeli authorities, but my priority has to be that they get home safe and that is where the focus is.”<\/p>\n
Asked what advice she would give to people joining any future flotilla, Ms McEntee said: “I would have to advise people not to. That is Government advice.<\/p>\n
“This is an extremely volatile environment, extremely volatile situation … Irish people and people in general want to do something to stop what is happening.<\/p>\n
“I would have to advise for all of the reasons we have discussed and seen in recent days, people not to take that action.”<\/p>\n
Read more: Flotilla activists subjected to violence – lawyer<\/p>\n A lawyer for the activists said that many of them, from a range of countries, were in severe pain after they said they were subjected to violence during their detention.<\/p>\n Suhad Bishara, who was speaking from the detention centre in Ashdod, said that she met hundreds of the activists yesterday.<\/p>\n “This was after a long night that they had at Ashdod Port, where they had to go through hearings before immigration officers and from there they moved to [a prison] in the south,” she said on the same programme.<\/p>\n “There was very systematic and patterned violence against participants.<\/p>\n “Many of them were in severe pain and we know of three at least were hospitalised last night and released later on.”<\/p>\n Ms Bishara said there were many complaints of humiliation and some of sexual harassment.<\/p>\n This was the most severe treatment in the past 10 years in terms of violence, degradation and humiliation, she said.<\/p>\n Last month, the Israeli government amended a law making deportation faster, Ms Bishara added.<\/p>\n Listen: Suhad Bishara gives update on Gaza aid flotilla activists<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The video of Israeli authorities’ treatment of flotilla protesters has “accelerated” the mood at EU level for action…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":459689,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-461002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/459689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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