Beyza Binnur Donmez<\/p>\n
20 May 2026\u2022Update: 20 May 2026<\/p>\n
UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca Albanese urged Italy on Wednesday to support suspending the EU-Israel Association Agreement, saying condemnation alone was insufficient following the treatment of activists aboard a Gaza-bound flotilla.<\/p>\n
Albanese responded to remarks by Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who condemned Israeli National Security Minister and a key coalition partner Itamar Ben-Gvir for footage involving flotilla activists.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Meloni, it is good to condemn Ben Gvir for the humiliation of the Flotilla members,\u201d Albanese wrote on the US social media platform X. \u201cBut words are not enough: Italy must stop opposing the suspension of the EU-Israel Agreement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Albanese described the treatment of flotilla members as \u201ca luxury treatment compared to what is inflicted on Palestinians in Israeli prisons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her remarks came after Meloni wrote on X that images involving Ben Gvir and flotilla activists were \u201cunacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is inadmissible that these demonstrators, including many Italian citizens, are subjected to this treatment that violates human dignity,\u201d wrote Meloni.<\/p>\n
The prime minister said Rome was taking \u201call necessary steps\u201d to secure the immediate release of Italian nationals, and demanded \u201can apology for the treatment reserved to these demonstrators.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meloni also announced that the Foreign Ministry would summon the Israeli ambassador to request \u201cformal clarifications\u201d about the incident.<\/p>\n
The remarks came after a video posted by Ben-Gvir showed detained activists zip-tied and forced to kneel after being detained by Israeli forces in international waters.<\/p>\n
The Global Sumud humanitarian aid flotilla said Tuesday that all 50 vessels in its aid convoy had been seized by Israel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beyza Binnur Donmez 20 May 2026\u2022Update: 20 May 2026 UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territory Francesca…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":451553,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43,180804],"class_list":["post-451552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451552\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/451553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}