Something significant and revelatory just happened in the New Zealand Parliament. I was present at today’s Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting when things kicked off between the Foreign Minister and humanitarian aid activist Hāhona Ormsby, one of the New Zealanders who survived kidnapping and beatings by Israeli forces in May.
Despite the presence of many well-known pro-Palestinian activists, there was no security in the room when things turned spicy. By the time security raced into the room the minister had lost all composure and repeatedly shouted at Ormsby, “You’re a liar!”
Hāhona may have breached parliamentary rules when he rose to challenge Winston Peters but he felt it was a price worth paying.
Despite the presence of many well-known pro-Palestinian activists, there was no security in the Foreign Affairs Select Committee meeting room when things turned spicy. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz/1News screenshot
“Is it New Zealand First, Winston? Or is it Israel First? Ormsby shot at the minister, leader of the New Zealand First Party. Turning to see the speaker, Peters appeared to recognise the tattooed face (mata ora) of Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto).
The chair tried to shut things down but Ormsby continued, “Are you going to sanction Israel? Are we going to investigate Israel for the people on the fleet that were brutally beaten and tortured?”
When Ormsby identified himself as one of the activists who had been held captive and severely beaten by the Israelis, Peters shouted, “Get out of here! You’re a liar!”
Another activist shot back: “You’re a war criminal.”
A priceless moment
This was a priceless moment because it revealed something enormously important: Peters believes what Itamar Ben-Gvir, Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli ambassador are saying and denies the evidence of 430 activists who were kidnapped and taken to Israel in May.
Some were hospitalised immediately on arriving in Türkiye. Winston takes the word of indicted war criminals in preference to medical examiners and lawyers who attended the activists on arrival in Türkiye.
Denying his own lying eyes, he waves away the black eyes, broken noses, deep wounds and other clearly visible injuries. Peters said there was “no evidence of brutality”.
Gaza flotilla activist Hāhona Ormsby’s (right) message to Winston Peters . . . “Is it New Zealand First, Winston? Or is it Israel First?” Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
By impugning the good name of some of our finest citizens Winston Peters betrays his duty to defend New Zealand and puts at risk Kiwis who continue their non-violent campaign to open a humanitarian corridor to the suffering people of Palestine.
“Welcome to Hell” – Inside Israeli torture prisons for Palestinians. Image: www.btselem.org
Meanwhile, even Australia has, on instruction from Winston’s counterpart Penny Wong, launched an investigation into testimonies of rape and torture by Australian members of the Global Sumud Flotilla.
Countries such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom have issued stinging rebukes. Malaysia is taking Israel to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and violence dished out to their citizens.
What happened to the Gaza humanitarian flotillas? Video: Al Jazeera
Surprise for Global Sumud Delegation
Just the day before, to the surprise of the Global Sumud Delegation, the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs (after having done absolutely nothing since Israeli forces attacked the flotilla in international waters) sent them an email offering to pass on any information about mistreatment to the Israelis.
It triggered suspicion as to motives. Today’s exchange reveals that MFAT and its minister had already made up their minds.
Rana Hamida of Global Sumud Aotearoa said: “Knowing we were coming to Wellington, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent us an email yesterday asking us to provide information on what happened to our activists. The message was that they would put this to the Israelis — in other words: they will leave it to Israel to be both the criminal and the judge. That’s not good enough.”
Ormsby’s action today in a parliamentary select committee clearly breached rules. It was, however, acting in the long tradition of those who have the courage to oppose complicity with tyranny and oppression.
As such, he stands in the company of the great Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, my friend and former CIA veteran Ray McGovern, Greta Thunberg and so many others who have raised their citizen voices in the halls of power and calmly accepted the indignity of being frog-marched out of buildings for doing so.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He contributes to Asia Pacific Report and Café Pacific, and he hosts solidarity.co.nz
The coastline on Futuna Island in southern Vanuatu . . . escalating rhetoric comes after diplomatic confrontations embroiling France, Vanuatu and Kanaky New Caledonia over the Matthew and Hunter islands. Image: Ben Bohane
In the great expanse of oceans, a number of small, remote islands are having their moment in the spotlight. From the Chagos islands to the South China Sea, a string of islands have been thrust suddenly onto the frontline of geopolitics. Now a long-simmering tussle over two rocky islands is creating tension in the South Pacific. Ben Bohane investigates.
SPECIAL REPORT: By Ben Bohane
South of Vanuatu, in deep ocean teeming with fish and birdlife, lie two contested islands being fought over by Vanuatu (population 350,000) and France, which has the largest EEZ (Exclusive Economic Zone) in the world, totalling 11 million square kilometres.
Little wonder Vanuatu is framing this as a “David versus Goliath” fight. Vanuatu calls these islands by their ancient kastom names: Umaenupne and Umaeneg.
On most maps, however, they are called by what British sea captains named them: Matthew and Hunter islands. France has controlled them since 1965.
Tanna’s Chief Peter Marcel, president of the Nikolaten Council of Chiefs . . . the disputed islands play a crucial role in the kastom and spiritual life of Vanuatu’s southern islanders. Image: Ben Bohane
France derives much prestige, wealth and a permanent UN Security Council seat thanks to its overseas territories and vast maritime domain, spread across multiple oceans. Now some politicians and security analysts in France are worried these two islands taken from Vanuatu before its independence in 1980 could prompt sovereignty claims in other jurisdictions, from Mexico to Madagascar, if Matthew and Hunter are returned to Vanuatu.
Responding to a story in Le Figaro newspaper that discussed the possibility of French President Emmanuel Macron ceding these islands as a “major symbolic turning point”, French far-right politician Marie Le Pen tweeted in December last year:
“Let’s be clear: national sovereignty is not negotiable and cannot be surrendered. The French people do not expect Macron’s government to carve up our overseas territories, which are real levers of power, influence and economic development, behind their backs, but to give itself the means to protect and defend them.”
Rising in Parliament in late May, Vanuatu’s Prime Minister Jotham Napat issued a response of sorts. He thundered that France was “dragging its feet” on negotiations following two postponements and was withholding relevant historical documents relating to France’s claim.
A commitment, but no resolution
French President Macron agreed to formal negotiations to resolve the issue when he visited Vanuatu in 2023, saying it could be “resolved by Christmas”. He renewed this commitment in a meeting with Prime Minister Napat in July 2025.
Years later, there is still no resolution. PM Napat warned:
“We will not take a passive approach. And we will not abandon our claim. We will defend our sovereignty with determination…
“We have carefully evaluated all of the legal options that are available to us. We are trying the diplomatic pathway, but we are also ready to change strategy as soon as is necessary.”
The escalating rhetoric comes after diplomatic confrontations embroiling France, Vanuatu and Kanaky New Caledonia. A trade delegation from New Caledonia arrived in Port Vila in May to boost economic ties but was quickly overshadowed by a diplomatic spat when one of the delegation, the new president of New Caledonia’s pro-independence FLNKS (Kanak and Socialist National Liberation Front) movement, Christian Téin, met with Vanuatu’s PM Napat.
The coastline on Futuna Island in southern Vanuatu . . . escalating rhetoric comes after diplomatic confrontations embroiling France, Vanuatu and Kanaky New Caledonia over the Matthew and Hunter islands. Image: Ben Bohane
Vanuatu has long supported independence for its indigenous “Kanaky” neighbours and meetings between Vanuatu and the FLNKS are quite routine. But when Téin affirmed to the local Daily Post newspaper in a front page splash that “Matthew and Hunter islands belong to Vanuatu” then France’s ambassador weighed in on social media and the New Caledonia government suspended all trade ties with Vanuatu.
Again, this is nothing new — indigenous Kanak chiefs have long recognised Vanuatu’s claims to Matthew and Hunter islands, declaring they had no kastom links to them and France should not have included them as part of New Caledonia, which France did in 1965.
Chiefs signed Keamu Accord
In 2009 Vanuatu and Kanak chiefs signed the Keamu Accord acknowledging that Matthew and Hunter belonged to Vanuatu.
France finds itself battling on three fronts in the Pacific . . . pro-independence FLNKS president Christian Téin affirmed to the Vanuatu Daily Post newspaper in a front page splash that “Matthew and Hunter islands belong to Vanuatu” . Image: Ben Bohane
France finds itself battling on three fronts in the Pacific at the moment — rising independence movements in New Caledonia, Tahiti (French Polynesia), and now an increasingly heated dispute with Vanuatu over Matthew and Hunter islands.
Vanuatu claims its southern islanders from Tanna, Aneityum and Futuna were regularly visiting these two disputed islands long before the first European got wet in the Pacific Ocean. These islands weren’t of much interest to British and French ships navigating the seas of the 18th and 19th century due to their small size and remoteness.
Both are volcanic but only Matthew remains an active volcano. Matthew (Umaenupne) was first named by British sea captain Thomas Gilbert in 1788 who named it after the owner of his ship. Gilbert would later bequeath his name to the Gilbert and Ellice islands which today form the nation of Kiribati.
Matthew and Hunter islands . . . framing the dispute as a “David versus Goliath” fight, Vanuatu calls these islands by their ancient kastom names: Umaenupne and Umaeneg.
Hunter (Umaeneg) island was named by British captain Thomas Fearn aboard his trading ship Hunter in 1798. It is thought he also named it Hunter to honour Vice-Admiral John Hunter who was then the Governor of NSW in Australia, the second after Arthur Phillip.
Hunter Street in Sydney and the Hunter Valley are similarly named after him.
The dispute over the islands primarily has its origins in the actions of another Australian named Bob Paul, who was a planter and aviation pioneer living on Tanna Island in the 1950s and 1960s, back when Vanuatu was known as the “Condominium of the New Hebrides” and jointly administered by Britain and France.
Australian planter and aviation pioneer Bob Paul living Vanuatu in the 1950s and 1960s . . . played a key role in the dispute over the islands primarily because of his actions. Image: Screenshot BB
‘He did a lot for our island’
Today Bob Paul is well remembered by chiefs on Tanna, including Peter Marcel, president of the Nikolaten Council of Chiefs. He told me that “Bob Paul was the first to show us how to run a business, how to run trade stores and bring in tourists. He did a lot for our island”.
In 1962, Paul flew over Matthew and Hunter islands and assessing from his map the two islands had not been claimed by anyone, he decided to claim them for himself and his flying friend Henri Martinet.
“It was a bit of a lark when he claimed them” says Paul’s son Brett from his home in Queensland, who remembers an idyllic childhood growing up on Tanna. “But my father always believed the islands ultimately belong to Vanuatu.”
Paul and Martinet’s claim in 1962 prompted the British and French Resident Commissioners to make inquiries about who the islands belonged to.
The British consulted their Foreign Office, Colonial Office and Admiralty. They also asked France and Australia.
The French then made internal inquiries and concluded that, based on its own internal investigation, France considered the islands to be part of New Caledonia. Britain was content with that view, and together they wrote to the Joint Court to advise that the islands belonged to New Caledonia.
Paul and Martinet’s claim was struck off.
Ni-Vanuatu never consulted
At no stage in the process were any Ni-Vanuatu consulted, so the decision was made by European colonial powers before Vanuatu’s independence. France’s claim to sovereignty over Matthew and Hunter islands has been recognised internationally ever since they were handed to them in 1965.
Vanuatu’s claim is rooted in kastom (culture) and its ancient connections to the islands, long before the first French sailor turned up on their shores. Vanuatu enshrined their own sovereignty over the islands in legislation upon the declaration of their independence.
Many would also argue that any deal done by Britain and France in the colonial period, with no consultation of the Indigenous population, is legally null and void today.
While a European mindset focuses on the strategic and resource value of such islands, what they ignore is the kastom value of these islands to Vanuatu. Matthew and Hunter islands play a crucial role in the kastom and spiritual life of Vanuatu’s southern islanders.
Indeed these islands aren’t just “rocks in the sea” but the home of their god Matjajiki. Chiefs from Vanuatu’s southern islands claim the two islands also contain ancient cemeteries where their ancestors had elected to be buried close to their god Matjajiki and were tabu for any visitors.
More importantly, chiefs say they need Matjajiki as the spirit who brings their food and fish.
“Matjajiki works to bring life to our gardens for six months every year — he is our gardening spirit. After the annual yam harvest he eats the first yam, drinks some kava and goes to rest for the rest of the year on Umaenupne and Umaeneg,” says chief Peter Marcel on Tanna. “Without the power of Matjajiki, nothing would grow.”
Veneration of ancestral spirits
While the islanders all identify as Christian, their veneration of ancestral spirits and the benevolent work of Matjajiki is at the heart of their identity. Magic stones can still be found in their gardens and rituals of thanks still performed through the cycle of yam planting and harvesting.
Matthew and Hunter are important places in the cosmology and some even say survival of southern Vanuatu.
France’s possession of these islands has cut the ability of Ni-Vanuatu from visiting and paying respect to their god. When a boat carrying chiefs in 1983 to plant the Vanuatu flag and perform kastom rituals arrived at the two islands, they were intercepted by a French navy ship and forced to turn around. No chiefs or ships from Vanuatu have been allowed since.
According to Tony Tevi, a geologist who is Vanuatu’s Director of Oceans and Marine Resources, geology and tectonic plates affirm Vanuatu’s ownership since “Matthew and Hunter sit on the Pacific plate, not the Australian plate which New Caledonia is on. Also there are no volcanoes in New Caledonia but plenty here in Vanuatu”.
For him, a further “insult” comes from France conducting military exercises on the islands every year, using a place reserved for the gods as target practice.
“The French military visit every year with their patrol boats to claim ‘effective occupation’ and do their live firing exercises on the very place — the very place! — that for us in Vanuatu is one of the most sacred and important places. That is very unacceptable”.
Vanuatu and France are expected to resume their next round of negotiations, in Paris, at the end of this month.
Ben Bohane is a Vanuatu-based photojournalist, producer and policy analyst who has reported the Asia-Pacific region for nearly 30 years. He has contributed articles to Asia Pacific Report. This article was first published by The Sydney Morning Herald and is republished with the author’s permission.
It isn’t Tehran led by unhinged, genocidal megalomaniacs threatening the security of the region and the world. It is Tel Aviv and Washington, writes Jonathan Cook.
ANALYSIS: By Jonathan Cook
Could it be that Israel’s 30-year narrative about Iran — one that persuaded US President Donald Trump to wage a criminal and disastrous war of aggression — was always a fiction, an invention cooked up in Tel Aviv?
Far from Tehran posing an existential danger to Israel, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has claimed for decades, might Israel’s real fear be that a stronger Iran would undermine its unique leverage over Washington, threatening its status as the region’s sole — and unmonitored — nuclear power?
Might large parts of the globe be facing economic meltdown simply so that Israel can remain the Middle East’s top dog — an unaccountable apartheid state committing genocide against the Palestinian people and ethnically cleansing southern Lebanon?
We got a definitive answer last week, care of The New York Times. It is an uncompromising yes to all of these questions.
The newspaper reported that Netanyahu not only mis-sold Trump on the idea of quick regime change in Iran following a short “shock and awe” bombing campaign. He also identified to the White House who was going to replace Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme religious leader.
Extraordinarily, according to The Times, Netanyahu named the man for the job as former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The aim at the start of the air campaign was for Israel to kill Khamenei, then liberate Ahmadinejad from house arrest by striking the guards who were confining him.
Presumably, Ahmadinejad was then supposed to storm the citadel and seize the keys to the palace. But only Khamenei’s assassination went according to plan.
Ahmadinejad, who had reportedly been consulted on the scheme beforehand, is believed to have been injured in the Israeli strike near his home. He got cold feet, possibly suspecting he was being set up for assassination too, and went into hiding. His current whereabouts and medical condition are unknown.
Ultimate bogeyman Neither US nor Israeli officials would comment to The Times on the alleged regime-change plot, a scheme that the newspaper called “audacious”. That is the understatement of all understatements.
The idea that Ahmadinejad had the popular support, let alone the religious authority and military muscle behind him, to take on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s crack military force responsible for protecting the clerical regime, is for the birds.
That anyone in the White House took this plan seriously, let alone acted on it, is a genuinely staggering notion. But the proposition that Ahmadinejad could retake the reins of power in Iran is possibly the least preposterous part of the scheme.
Fast forward two decades, and Netanyahu reportedly now thinks Ahmadinejad is the best person to lead Iran; the person for whom it was worth killing Khamenei
While younger readers may not recognise Ahmadinejad’s name, everyone else should. He made headlines on an almost weekly basis during much of his eight-year presidency, starting in 2005. Why? Because Israel turned him into the ultimate bogeyman.
After neighbouring Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was toppled and executed in 2006, following an illegal invasion by the US and Britain, Ahmadinejad was hyped as the new implacable threat to regional peace.
Claims about Ahmadinejad first breathed an illusory substance into Israel’s now-unchallenged script that a supposedly fanatical, deranged Iran would leave no stone unturned in seeking to destroy Israel. Ahmadinejad, we were told time and again, was seeking to pursue a nuclear bomb — even after Khamenei had issued a religious edict in 2003 strictly banning its development.
In 2006, Ehud Olmert, then the Israeli prime minister, warned the world that Ahmadinejad was a “psychopath of the worst kind”, adding: “He speaks as Hitler did in his time of the extermination of the entire Jewish nation.”
Olmert was echoing a panic-inducing campaign led by Netanyahu, then Israel’s opposition leader, that Iran needed to be attacked immediately to save Israel and the world.
“It’s 1938 and Iran is Germany,” Netanyahu told a meeting of American Jewish leaders that same year. “And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs.”
Of Ahmadinejad, he said: “Believe him and stop him… He is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state.”
Under Ahmadinejad, Iran was supposedly hellbent on destroying Israel, turning it into a giant Auschwitz. Also in 2006, Netanyahu told Israeli Army Radio: “Israel would certainly be the first stop on Iran’s tour of destruction.”
Ahmadinejad was so unhinged, Netanyahu said, that he would not stop at Israel’s eradication: “Iran is developing ballistic missiles that would reach America, and now they prepare missiles with an adequate range to cover the whole of Europe.”
Iran has won the war. Trump and Netanyahu now face a reckoning Video: The David Hearst Podcast
‘Genocidal intent’ A short time later, Israel’s fear-mongering operation reached a crescendo in London.
Netanyahu told members of the British Parliament that Ahmadinejad had to be urgently brought before the International Criminal Court — the war crimes court in The Hague — for his “messianic apocalyptic view of the world”.
Irony of ironies, Netanyahu — who 20 years later is a fugitive from that same court, accused of crimes against humanity for starving the people of Gaza — emphasised Ahmadinejad’s supposed genocidal intent towards Israel.
“In the 1930s, too, no one believed that Hitler was capable of taking action because he didn’t explicitly talk about wiping out the Jewish people,” Netanyahu told British MPs. “In contrast, the Iranian president publicly announces his intentions and no one is trying to stop him.”
Michael Gove, a former Conservative cabinet minister who chaired the meeting, enthusiastically agreed, ignoring a confounding fact: that thousands of Jews have lived peacefully in Iran for centuries.
Gove told the meeting that Ahmadinejad’s “rhetoric is more than worrying, but tantamount to an incitement of genocide”.
Gove’s concern about genocide has not subsequently extended to Gaza. He has repeatedly denounced anyone, including legal experts and Holocaust scholars, who has noted Israel’s genocide there.
In the midst of the mass slaughter in Gaza, Gove even called for the Israeli military to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.
It is not Tehran led by unhinged, genocidal megalomaniacs threatening the security of the region and the world. It is Tel Aviv and Washington.
Smoke and mirrors Two decades ago, the message from Netanyahu was clear: Ahmadinejad was so rabidly antisemitic that he deserved to be compared to Hitler.
Ahmadinejad was so eager to pursue a nuclear weapons programme that he was prepared to defy the country’s supreme religious leader. He was so mentally unstable that he was ready to use those weapons to exterminate Israel, even though such a move would ensure a retaliatory nuclear counter-strike on his own country.
Lest we forget, Ahmadinejad had a reputation for such ruthless crackdowns on political opponents that Amnesty International noted in 2014 that his rule had “sounded the death knell for academic freedom in Iran”.
Yet, fast forward two decades, and Netanyahu reportedly now thinks Ahmadinejad is the best person to lead Iran; the person for whom it was worth killing Khamenei, Iran’s most influential opponent of nuclear weapons.
The New York Times reports that in recent years, there were strong suspicions inside Iran that Israel, Britain and the US were cultivating ties with Ahmadinejad and those around him — suspicions that now seem to be confirmed by Israel’s apparent regime-change plan.
The newspaper further reports that Ahmadinejad had recently travelled to both Guatemala and Hungary, countries with very close ties to Israel.
Does any of this make sense? And yet for Western media, the fact that Netanyahu was championing Ahmadinejad as Iran’s saviour, and that the US administration wholeheartedly bought into this idea, is little more than “surprising”.
In truth, it wrecks Israel’s entire narrative about Iran. It is a telling reminder of the yawning gap between what we have been told about Iran for decades, and what has actually been going on.
Image and reality bear almost no resemblance to each other. This has all been smoke and mirrors.
‘Wiped off the map’ In my 2008 book Israel and the Clash of Civilisations, I pointed out that nothing Israel was telling us about its Middle Eastern rival could be accepted at face value — least of all Israel’s assertion that Ahmadinejad was a Jew-hating “new Hitler”.
Many of the claims promoted 20 years ago by Israel about Ahmadinejad’s genocidal intent stemmed from a mistranslation of a speech in which the Iranian leader had quoted the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
According to Western politicians and media, Ahmadinejad had called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” — widely portrayed as an ambition to launch a nuclear strike on Israel.
The disinformation about Iran should have been all too glaring back in 2006, had any of it been reported properly – just as it should be now
In fact, Ahmadinejad had been repeating Khomeini’s observation that Israel could not survive indefinitely in the form of an illegitimate Jewish supremacist state oppressing another people. He was pointing out that Israel’s days as a racist state were numbered, just as apartheid South Africa’s had been.
The sentiment behind Khomeini’s statement should be much clearer in the present circumstances, when it is Israel, not Iran, that has been busy wiping people off the map — in Gaza and southern Lebanon.
Similarly, Israel and its Western allies made a great deal of noise in 2006 when Ahmadinejad called what was widely misrepresented as a “Holocaust denial” conference in Tehran. In fact, Ahmadinejad had organised what was intended to be a provocative — and to some, offensive — stunt to challenge Western taboos about Israel and underscore the West’s hypocrisy towards Muslims.
Ahmadinejad’s point was twofold: firstly, if Muslims are not entitled to have their beliefs and sensitivities respected by Westerners — as evidenced by the 2005 “Danish cartoon affair” and the “free speech” defence for presenting caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad — why should Westerners expect their own sensitivities about Israel and the Holocaust to be exempt from challenge?
He also wanted to dissect the Western belief that someone else, the Palestinian people, should pay a heavy price, including decades of dispossession and abuse, for the West’s crimes against Europe’s Jews.
Horror show The disinformation about Iran should have been all too glaring back in 2006, had any of it been reported properly — just as it should be now, two decades later, were Western journalists doing their job rather than acting as stenographers for Israel and the White House.
The lies, now as then, serve the same end: to justify crushing Iran — then through sanctions, later through the addition of illegal bombing — so that Israel’s right to trample over the lives of people across the region without consequence can be protected.
Iran, now refusing to release its chokehold over the Strait of Hormuz and the global supply of oil, is demanding that the price include an end to US backing for the Israeli-directed horror show in the Middle East.
Like a spoiled toddler, Trump is thrashing around — while cashing in on the volatility of the oil markets — trying to impose the old rules, when the terms of the confrontation are no longer under his exclusive control.
His latest tantrum — one cooked up in Tel Aviv as much as Washington — is that most Arab states, including Iran’s neighbours in the Gulf, be forced to sign the so-called Abraham Accords with Israel. This is being presented as the framework for a regional “peace deal” involving Iran.
In truth, it is the very opposite.
The accords are designed to cement Israel’s status as the Middle East’s top dog, subordinating Arab states’ interests to Israel’s, and thereby isolating Iran in the region and leaving the Palestinian people and Lebanon to a genocidal Israel’s mercy.
This is another swindle, like Trump’s “Board of Peace”, which dresses up US and Israeli criminal aggression and genocide as “peacemaking”.
What the past 20 years of lies and misdirections have sought to hide is a simple fact: it is not Tehran that is led by unhinged, genocidal megalomaniacs threatening the security of the region and the world. It is Tel Aviv and Washington.
Since the pair launched their criminal war of aggression against Iran three months ago, Tehran has shown restraint, acted with caution, and displayed a willingness to negotiate in good faith. Too bad there are no responsible adults on the other side with whom it can make a deal.
Jonathan Cook is a writer, journalist and self-appointed media critic and author of many books about Palestine. Winner of the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. This article was first published by the Middle East Eye and republished with permission.
Pink Panther and the new Karang-a-hape CRL station . . . awaiting launch date. "I am excited about the soon-to-be-opening City Rail Link and the new neighbourhood station is going to inject sparkling life (providing the modernity doesn’t eclipse the iconic K Road character)." Image: David Robie/Café Pacific
For this edition of Kāpū Tī with Antony, I sit down with journalist and academic, Dr David Robie. A professor of journalism who has worked in Aotearoa and abroad, David is a Central Aucklander and regular visitor who is highly engaged in the City Centre. We sit down for a cuppa — coffee on this occasion and what a delight it was.
Kāpū Tī with Antony conversation with David Robie at the Little Melba café. Image: The Vertical
Kia ora David, this is a column that brings the interviewer and interviewee together over tea and today we are enjoying coffee together — do you drink tea?
Antony, I have to confess that I rarely drink tea, and when I do I feel vaguely conspiratorial and subversive. Selling out on my notorious coffee habits. Although visiting some tea plantations and a tea culture museum in the mountains near Taipei a couple of years ago, it was a fascinating experience and I became tempted — for a day or two.
How do you take your tea?
When I do take it (for a break from coffee), I go for green teas, or with lemon and ginger – just tea bags, not via the lovely little teapots my wife Del has.
You’re hosting afternoon tea at your home, who are your top five guests?
You mean a wish list? Francesca Albanese, Jonathan Cook, Wendy Bacon, Mehdi Hasan and Abbas Araghchi. But then, I am sure they’re all primarily coffee drinkers.
Now you’re not a City Centre local, we in the City Centre would almost describe you [in Inner City Grey Lynn], jokingly, as “semi-rural” — tell me about your relationship to the City Centre.
Yes, I am a fringe local, about a 20 minute walk if you like (although I use the many buses at our disposal – let’s have free public transport like in Dunkirk and Montpellier in France; Tallinn, Estonia; Luxembourg and a host of other progressive cities). But I am a regular townie and love the way the city has been becoming far more pedestrian friendly with blended streets. Although I must confess I have long wanted Queen Street to be totally pedestrian like Brisbane’s Queen Street.
Pink Panther and the new Karang-a-Hape CRL station . . . awaiting launch date. “I am excited about the soon-to-be-opening City Rail Link and the new neighbourhood station is going to inject sparkling life (providing the modernity doesn’t eclipse the iconic K Road character).” Image: David Robie/Café Pacific
What are your favourites parts to the City? For instance, if you were hosting visitors, where do you like to take them?
The Viaduct, although I am not very keen on luxury motor yachts — an insult to green footprints; Silo Park is better for a walk and with the night and fish markets. Not sure whether Karangahape Road precinct counts for “City Centre”, but I love the quirky bohemian atmosphere there and I am excited about the soon-to-be-opening City Rail Link and the new neighbourhood station is going to inject sparkling life (providing the modernity doesn’t eclipse the iconic K Road character). Also, the Ellen Melville Centre and Freyberg Place have a really appealing sense of community space.
Queen Street has become more pedestrian friendly with the widening of the eastern footpath and improved seating and planting. Do you feel Queen Street has improved?
Yes, it has improved — but not enough. In fact, it is a bit schizophrenic at the moment — the eastern side is more pedestrian and cyclist friendly, but the western is still captive to a fossil fuel regime. It is confused about what it is, so lacks a genuine “heart of Tāmaki Makaurau” identity. As I mentioned earlier, I would rather see it as totally pedestrian like Brisbane’s Queen Street.
There’s strong history of citizens’ assembly and protest on Queen Street, you’ve had a long history of activism, what’s your feelings about Queen Street as a civic space of national significance?
Love it! One of the best features of Queen Street is its photogenic and audio qualities for protest photography. In many ways, I feel I have been almost living every weekend in the urban heart troika at Aotea Square, Queen Street, Te Komititanga Square — either at rallies or marches. Auckland Tāmaki Makaurau has now hosted 132 [now 138] consecutive weekly rallies for an independent Palestine and against the Gaza genocide.
That is an extraordinary track record for the city — and far exceeds the longevity over any other issue. The creativity, sounds and ingenuity of protesters is impressive. Having lived through the annual May Day and other protests while living in Paris, France, some years ago, I think we can be truly proud of Auckland.
Belated republication from The Vertical City Centre newsletter April/May edition.
City Centre fringe dweller David Robie at a Queen Street Stop Wars Aotearoa rally. “In many ways, I feel I have been almost living every weekend in the urban heart troika at Aotea Square, Queen Street, Te Komititanga Square – either at rallies or marches.” Image: David Robie/FB
There was only one moment when I was interviewing him last week that Mousa Taher broke down and cried. It was a surprising, pivotal moment in the interview.
He had just made it back to Aotearoa New Zealand from Israeli detention. Of course, we covered the ordeal — the beatings, the death threats, the scare tactics with dogs, etc — that he and 430 other Global Sumud activists from 60 countries had been subjected to over four days from their interception in international waters to their release and flight to safety in Tűrkiye.
Near the end of the interview I asked him, “What do you think is going through the minds of our leaders — Christopher Luxon [Prime Minister] and Winston Peters [Foreign Minister] — that they choose to align themselves, not with you and the Palestinians, but with the Israeli regime that is committing genocide?”
Mousa Taher . . . kicked in the face by the Israeli military for supporting Palestinians and their freedom. Image: Solidarity
For a moment his head went down and then he said: “Honestly, it’s a bit of a touchy subject for me, Eugene.” And then he cried.
“On my way back I almost mourned the death of my country. I’m a proud Kiwi. My grandfather George Whale, fought for New Zealand in the Second World War. From my Pakeha (non-indigenous Māori) side, you learn about the nuclear-free New Zealand movement, you learn about the anti-Apartheid Springbok Tour protests, you learn about the attack and sinking of Greenpeace’s Rainbow Warrior, you learn about New Zealand being the first country to give women the vote.
“You think your country is special, and has a sense of justice, a sense of doing what’s right, and standing up to the giants even if that’s going to cost us. I just don’t know where that place is anymore.
France bans Ben-Gvir. Video: France24
Mousa’s comment about mourning for our country brought to mind Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton’s 1948 novel about Apartheid South Africa — a country that was fractured along racial and political lines, one where the ruling group had sunk into a moral abyss, resolutely cleaving to an abhorrent vision of the world. New Zealand, like most Western countries, stood with white South Africa through long decades. We mobilised and eventually changed that.
Endless wars of aggression
New Zealand’s close alignment with both Israel and the US in their endless wars of aggression may sit badly with many New Zealanders but, to date, the pushback has been insufficiently powerful, the mobilisation of citizens too small to effect a fundamental change in the country’s foreign policy settings.
This November’s general election, coming just four days after the US mid-terms, will be instructive and crucial.
Mousa Taher had two gruelling encounters with the Israeli occupation forces in the past month. It speaks to his commitment, his sense of sumud (steadfastness) that he signed up for a second sailing with the flotilla in May.
This was just weeks after being captured by the Israelis in international waters off Crete. That time he got off relatively lightly compared to the severe beating dished out to some of his comrades, including New Zealander Julien Blondel.
The Turkish government laid on flights from Crete for a couple of hundred activists, taking them to Istanbul. New Zealand offered zero support.
“At that point I was kind of done. ‘I’ve done my dash here. I miss my family, and I think I’m ready to go home’.” But then his friend Bianca, a Kiwi-Australian said she would stay and join the next flotilla attempting to open a humanitarian corridor to Gaza.
“Wow, she’s a soldier, mate. I just completely changed my mind. I thought: ‘If there’s a chance to go and to finish this mission, I’m in’.”
Mousa Taher . . . “On my way back I almost mourned the death of my country. I’m a proud Kiwi.” Image: Solidarity
Hugged the Turkish coast
Mousa, a “backyard” mechanic, spent May working on boats, training and getting everything ready to sail again. Sailing from Marmaris, Tűrkiye, they initially hugged the Turkish coast and were treated to wonderful experiences including a village turning out en masse and preparing a feast for the Sumud activists.
Not long after passing Cyprus, still over 400km from Israeli waters, the flotilla was intercepted and a four-day ordeal began. It was quickly clear the Israelis tactics were hardening, perhaps out of a sense of impunity after governments like New Zealand, Australia, Canada and the UK turned a blind eye and deaf ears to the mistreatment of their own citizens last time.
Israeli Shayetet 13 commandos, weapons trained on the humanitarian activists, took control of Kasr-i Sadabad, the vessel Mousa was sailing on. He and another activist, also of Palestinian descent, were made to strip to their underpants in front of everyone. “It was kind of weird.”
The crew was then transferred to a prison ship which sailed for Ashdod, Israel. Without cause, they were tasered.
“They knew me by name this time. They blindfolded all of us, zip-tied all of us. They zip tied my legs, not anybody else’s — and my hands very tightly. ‘Don’t you ever fucking come back here, Mousa. It’s your second time. We’ve seen the messages you sent to your kids.
“‘You’re saying you’re scared for your life — that means you want to kill yourself, you’re going to suicide bomb. You’re a terrorist!’ They’d stand on my hands, stand on my face, kick me in the face.”
“They were complete sadists. They were enjoying it, mate. When he put his boot on my face, I couldn’t quite see because of the blindfold, but I could feel he was posing. They were laughing and having this conversation, like it wasn’t a serious thing that they were doing.”
More tasers, kicks, punches
After they got to Ashdod, it got worse. More tasers, more kicks, punches, stripping and humiliating, menacing with dogs, stress positions, the craft of sadism. Later he learnt of the sexual violence the Israelis committed on many comrades, male and female.
Malaysia is preparing to take a case to the International Court of Justice over the kidnapping and torture of Sumud activists . . . othet countries have protested while New Zealand has done nothing. Image: Solidarity
I spent a long time talking with Mousa Taher. Like all the many Sumud people I have dealt with, he is the soul of decency and humanity. And courage. I won’t recount his full story but Mousa Taher has been through the fires of hell — the Israeli prison system.
His torment was relatively brief — four days — compared to the endless agony of thousands of Palestinian souls caught in the torment that Israel inflicts and which New Zealand, Australia and all the other state sponsors of genocide facilitate every day.
Last word to Alan Paton
I’ll give the last word to Alan Paton, author of Cry, the Beloved Country. I address it to all the people who have not stepped forward and joined the struggle for Palestine, who have not stepped forward to reshape our foreign policy and move New Zealand towards peace and independence, who have not raised their voices to reject hostile military alliances and America’s endless wars of aggression.
Without necessarily taking the same risks, we all need to be more like Mousa Taher, Hāhona Ormsby, Julien Blondel, Jay O’Connor, Rana Hamida, Samuel Leason, Sean Janssen, and all the wonderful activists of the Global Sumud organisation like my friend Eloiza Montana.
Alan Paton: “To give up the task of reforming society is to give up one’s responsibility as a human being.”
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and hosts solidarity.co.nz
I interviewed several of the New Zealanders who, as members of the Global Sumud Flotilla to Gaza, were taken hostage by the Israelis in international waters near Cyprus last week and moved to Israel.
The sadism and savagery of their mistreatment — clearly designed to intimidate and stop further attempts to open a humanitarian corridor — gave them a small taste of the network of torture camps that hold thousands of Palestinians in captivity suggestive of Dante’s Inferno.
Their ordeal lasted only four days. Repeatedly kicked, punched, sexually humiliated and beaten unconscious, the cruellest blow was that their own government refused to stand up for them.
“The face of courage vs the face of evil” . . . NZ Sumud Flotilla activist Hāhona Ormsby (left) and his tormenter Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, whose social media post of hate towards the humanitarian aid volunteers went viral. Image: Solidarity screenshot APR
This is Hāhona Ormsby’s story: Itamar Ben-Gvir himself spat at Hāhona Ormsby. Many will recall the footage of the Israeli National Security Minister swaggering among the zip-tied Global Sumud activists last week, each of whom was forced face down before him.
Hāhona was being moved through a huge tent. He passed a table where Ben-Gvir was drinking a can of Coke. The minister looked up and saw a man with a facial tattoo. Recognising an Indigenous person, he spat at him! “It landed on my t-shirt,” Ormsby told me.
“As soon as he spat at me — and I don’t know if the soldier did it to impress Ben-Gvir — but the soldier with me punched me in the back of the head.”
France bans Israeli security minister over his “taunts” video Video: Al Jazeera
Hāhona Ormsby is Ngāti Maniapoto, a member of a major tribal federation in New Zealand. He is one of the nicest, most decent people you could possibly meet. His mataora (tattoo) is both sacred and traditional. Earlier that day it had already drawn unwelcome attention.
“He’s a Māori! He’s a Māori!” a female soldier shouted, pointing at Ormsby. She may have recognised this if she was one of thousands of Israeli soldiers who holiday in New Zealand every year. Our government welcomes them, no questions asked.
Few Palestinian refugees are ever allowed entry.
Personal ‘minder’
As with each activist, Hāhona was provided a personal “minder” soon after he arrived in Ashdod, Israel.
Hāhona Ormsby at sea with the Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid bid to break Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip enclave. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
“A soldier came and lifted me up by my zip ties. He pulled down his mask and said, ‘Look into my eyes. I am the craziest motherfucker here. I will hurt you every minute you are with me’.” And that is how the nightmare started.
Throughout the day the New Zealand citizen was intermittently punched, kicked, kneed in the groin, body slammed, stripped naked, and repeatedly hauled up by the plastic zip ties that bound his wrists together.
Several of the captives told me how incredibly tight and painful these zip ties were and how they feared long-term nerve damage.
“The whole time I looked at that soldier I was thinking, ‘I know you kill children, I know you kill women, I know you are that evil,” Evil. That word has come up several times in my conversations with the activists who got this taste, this small intimate encounter with the genocide.
Hāhona thought of his good friend, fellow Kiwi Julien Blondel who was savagely beaten a couple of weeks earlier. “I felt his wairua (spirit), his brokenness and I now understood that brokenness. That sense of lostness.”
Forced head down for long periods in stress positions, receiving random kicks and body slams throughout the day, he was also menaced by close encounters with dogs. “If you do not stop lying to me, I’m going to lock you in that cell with these dogs!” he was told when an interrogator said he didn’t believe he was a teacher.
Hāhona thought of his whānau, his extended family. He remembered they had urged him to come home after he made it to Türkiye after an earlier interception, an earlier ordeal in April.
“But I thought: my comrades, they were going on and I had to stand with them.”
Beaten unconscious
At one point his “minder” beat him unconscious. The Kiwi citizen was kicked hard in the groin and that night had blood in his urine. “The whole night I thought about the Palestinians and what they are going through. If the Israelis do this to a New Zealander imagine what the Palestinians are going through.”
To me, listening to this, I recognised true courage, true humanity, the kind we seldom encounter and should always revere.
Listening to Hāhona Ormsby I recalled my Catholic upbringing and the words of John 15: “Greater love hath no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” Ormsby and all those other activists joined the flotilla not out of hatred for Israel but out of love for suffering humanity, for their brothers and sisters in Palestine. They represent the very best of us.
Another man who professes to be a Christian is the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Christopher Luxon. For me, his variant bends towards Hell and Israel; our government being a stalwart ally of the Israelis. The Israeli Ambassador is being called in by the ministry of foreign affairs for what, Ormsby says, is likely “a slap with a wet bus ticket” over the state terrorist attack on New Zealand citizens.
Our government offered no material support to the Sumud activists after the recent ordeals our citizens were subjected to. They issued no warnings to the Israelis to respect our citizens, providing the IDF with a free pass to abuse New Zealanders in captivity.
And, my god, they did. The first duty of a leader is to protect citizens. All this comes in a week that saw Israel added to the United Nations blacklist of nations committing sexual violence in conflict zones.
I won’t repeat all the grim details of what Hāhona went through. Let us just say it was a huge relief when, four days after his capture aboard the Al Tira (named, as all the Sumud boats were, after a Palestinian village that had been erased by the Israeli occupation), Hāhona was transferred to the airport where they boarded planes provided by the Turkish government.
Turkish delight!
Ormsby had his first food in four days on that plane — Turkish delight! On the tarmac at Istanbul they were welcomed by top Turkish politicians and Foreign Ministry staff, a crowd of supporters, media and a fleet of buses and ambulances to shuttle those who needed it to hospital, others to medical checks, forensic interviews to record their testimony, psychological evaluations and eventually a banquet and accommodation provided by the government.
NZ Prime Minister of Christopher Luxon (left), “his variant bends towards Hell and Israel; our government being a stalwart ally of the Israelis”; Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir; and another New Zealand flotilla activist, Julien Blondel, who was severely beaten last month. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
It is worth noting that no officials welcomed them when they returned to New Zealand. No media was there to interview them. It reminded me of the similarly shameful way New Zealanders who fought Franco’s Fascists in Spain in the 1930s were treated on their return, prior to the Second World War.
It’s our collective job to make sure this extraordinary story is shared and remembered — and that we draw the necessary lessons from it.
Eugene Doyle is a writer based in Wellington, New Zealand. He has written extensively on the Middle East, as well as peace and security issues in the Asia Pacific region. He is a contributor to Asia Pacific Report and hosts solidarity.co.nz
An emotional and inspiring welcome greeted two of Aotearoa New Zealand’s three Gaza Sumud Flotilla humanitarian activists who arrived home today after their ordeal at the hands of the brutal Israeli military and prison forces last week.
About 60 whānau, supporters and well-wishers greeted Hāhona Ormsby and Mousa Taher with a waiata and haka.
The returning activists were among about 430 humanitarians from 43 countries trying to break the illegal blockade who were kidnapped, abused and taken to Israel on “torture ships”.
Supporters greet NZ Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian activists Mousa Taher and Hāhona Ormsby on their return to Aotearoa today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
‘Travel ban on Ben-Gvir’
“Last year, New Zealand placed a travel ban on Minister Ben-Gvir for severely and deliberately undermining peace and security and removing prospects for a two state solution.”
However, a Palestinian researcher has criticised the “weak responses” of Australia and New Zealand over the “detention and humiliation”.
Writing in the Sydney-based Green Left magazine, Shamikh Badra said the abuse and torture by Israel not only revealed Tel Aviv’s approach to the Gaza enclave, it raised questions about Australia’s “response to an ally which is responsible for genocide”.
Global Sumud Aotearoa flotilla supporters at the airport welcome today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
The Ben-Gvir video footage showed that hundreds of detained activists from various countries — including 11 Australians and three New Zealanders — were forced to kneel with their hands restrained behind their backs while Ben-Gvir walked past mocking them.
Among the peace activists were doctors, students, academics and filmmakers.
French Gaza flotilla activists return to Paris after illegal Israeli detention at sea Video: DRM News
“The flotilla had again been attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, and challenge the illegal blockade,” wrote Badra, who is originally from Gaza and is a convener of the Coalition for Justice and Peace in Palestine.
He is also a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong.
“They were again intercepted illegally in international waters, but the outcry at their treatment has only come after Ben-Gvir’s public humiliation.
Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir gloating in the Gaza flotilla detainees video. AJ screenshot APR
‘Public display of Israeli state power’
“Ben-Gvir’s video was not just about controlling the detainees; it was a public display of the Israeli state’s power,” wrote Badra.
“The forced kneeling, restraints and ridicule were part of a political performance designed to send a wider message: Israel will stop all attempts to challenge the blockade of Gaza.
“Some detainees were restrained with plastic ties; others were forced to kneel while the Israeli national anthem played through loudspeakers. This was a deliberate display of domination.
“They report that they were sexually abused, punched, tasered and kept in inhumane conditions.”
Basic humanitarian law meant that even in situations involving detention or maritime interception, civilians must be protected, wrote Badra.
“This is why European officials, the first to speak out, described the scenes as degrading and unacceptable.”
“We stand together from Aotearoa to Gaza” banner at Auckland International Airport today. Image: Asia Pacific Report
‘Shocking’ but restrained response
As with New Zealand’s Minister Peters, Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong followed suit, saying the footage was “shocking and unacceptable”.
“However there is another broader issue — Wong’s restrained response,” wrote Badra.
“The Benjamin Netanyahu government, of which Ben-Gvir is a senior minister, is one of the [Australian] Labor government’s closest strategic partners.
“Australia’s foreign policy is supposed to be framed around protecting human rights, opposition to arbitrary detention and the defence of its citizens overseas.
“If Israel knows that international reactions are likely to be limited to statements of concern, rather than military sanctions and political isolation, the cost to it of mistreating flotilla activists is marginal.
“But perhaps Ben-Gvir has done us a favour by revealing how Israel treats supporters of Palestine. The flotilla activists’ accounts of their abuse, and the abuse they saw meted out to Palestinian prisoners, don’t leave much to the imagination.”
Shame on the Basque police @ertzaintzaEJGV for brutalising Flotilla members returning home after being abducted, unlawfully detained and ill-treated by Israel. May those responsible be held accountable.
Activists freed from Israeli detention following the interception of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla have reported that they were subjected to physical and sexual abuse, say flotilla organisers — with at least 15 reporting sexual assaults, including rape.
“At least 15 cases of sexual assaults, including rape. Shot with rubber bullets at close range. Tens of people’s bones broken,” organisers of the Global Sumud Flotilla posted on Telegram.
“While the world’s eye is trained on the suffering of our participants, we cannot emphasize enough that this is a mere glimpse of the brutality Israel imposes daily on Palestinian hostages,” the statement added.
The reports come after the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) on Wednesday doubled down on its abusive treatment of activists forcibly detained, despite scores of testimonies detailing beatings, interrogation and humiliation as well as rape and sexual abuse.
The IPS responded to a barrage of global criticism after a video showed far-right Israel National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir taunting the flotilla detainees as they were being handcuffed, pushed, dragged and assaulted.
A group of Australian citizens were kidnapped on international waters and beaten senseless on camera by their captors – Israel
The most prominent Israel advocate in Australia – Jillian Segal – has so far said nothing about the welfare of her fellow Australian citizens nor… pic.twitter.com/deibOB3nhC
— Ronni🧂Salt-WhoWroteGunnawahYeahThatOne (@RonniSalt) May 23, 2026
“Upon receiving the detainees, the prison guards were required to act to maintain order and security at the site. All actions were carried out in accordance with procedures and professional considerations,” the IPS claimed.
The IPS also claimed that some of the detainees being shown in widely circulating videos were “not under the responsibility” of the IPS when they were being filmed.
“Australia has raised our concerns with Israeli authorities about the treatment of detainees …” says Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Image: 10 screenshot APR
Rights groups say abuse ‘systematic’
However, rights groups have accused Israel of making humiliation, sexual abuse and torture of detainees and prisoners systematic.
Dr Mimi Syed, a US-based physician who volunteered in Gaza amid Israel’s war on the besieged enclave, told The New Arab that Israel’s treatment of those aboard the flotilla is illegal.
“You cannot treat activists and humanitarian workers this way. It’s absolutely outrageous how there’s witnesses saying that people were raped and obvious signs of force being used — I saw some of the photos of the activists which show signs of bruising and fractures, things like that which are absolutely unnecessary,” she said.
“There is video recording of officials deliberately assaulting some of these activists which is just unheard of.
“I’m not surprised as this is something the Israeli government has been doing to civilians in Gaza, so doing to activists in other countries is still right on par with what they have demonstrated to the world in the last two and a half years,” she said.
Several photos and videos shared this week on social media showed flotilla activists being forced to kneel down with their heads on the ground, while Israeli prison officers are surrounding them.
The footage, some of which was shared by minister Ben-Gvir, was condemned by several states, while Poland, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK summoned Israeli ambassadors to “clarify” why their citizens were mistreated.
‘Complete impunity’
The liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz asked the country’s foreign ministry if the treatment of the flotilla activists was acceptable, but there was no response.
“When a country has complete impunity to do what they want, nothing really is out of bounds for them,” Dr Syed said.
“They will do what they need to achieve their goal which is a land grab, ethnic cleansing, genocide, the displacement of millions of people. It’s not just in Gaza, it’s in the West Bank and Lebanon.”
Activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, who were taken to Istanbul before returning to their countries, also revealed on Friday that the abuse they faced included rubber bullets being fired at close range, tasers to the face, stun grenades thrown into groups of people, stress positions for hours under bright lights, the forced removal of hijabs and sexual taunting.
They said the sexual violence included strip searches, groping, the pulling of genitals, and rape.
According to organisers, based on testimonies from those released from detention, some of the most horrifying accounts come from those aboard a single vessel, dubbed “torture boat”.
“I can say that all were in many ways abused, not one single person walking with nothing,” Veronica Otero, told reporters.
“Among them there were 36 fractures, many broken ribs, torso, shoulders, and back. People were in agony. People were not breathing [due to the broken ribs].”
An Australian Gaza flotilla activist shows off the bruising on his arm from a beating from the Israeli prison guards. Image: 10 screenshot APR
Testimonies of abuse, rape More than 50 boats took part in the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), with 430 people on board from more than 40 countries, and since armed Israeli naval commandos began intercepting the fleet in international waters, many have detailed the abuse they faced.
One Australian activist, Zack Schofield, who had since been deported to Istanbul and has now returned to Australia, said all the members of the flotilla were treated brutally.
“Her hands [and] feet were zip-tied together, and then she was dragged around the rest of the processing centre, before she was taken into a prison bus,” he told reporters, referring to an abused Irish woman who was part of the flotilla group.
“There’s no consistency to the violence. It was really at the whim of whichever guard was in front of you,” he continued, adding that he saw many people receive similar or worse treatment.
Juliet Lamont, a filmmaker from Australia, said Israeli soldiers sexually assaulted and beat her, noting she witnessed others — at least 40 — being left with broken bones, while others were sedated and tasered.
The activists said prison guards restricted access to food and water, and were left to sleep on cold, wet floors for days with no mattress or blankets, in cramped conditions.
We do not need any more examples to know that we are dealing with a terrorist state! ❌ There is a long, documented history of systemic violence perpetrated by the Israeli regime against the Palestinian people with absolute impunity. pic.twitter.com/JIPvZf2Rqp
Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila told The New Arab he was beaten unconscious and Israeli forces threatened to kill him.
Meanwhile, Luca Poggi, an Italian economist who was aboard the flotilla, confirmed the reports of sexual abuse: “We were stripped, thrown to the ground, kicked.
“Many of us were tasered, some were sexually assaulted, and some were denied access to a lawyer,” he told reporters after he was deported to Rome.
Nadda Osman is a British-Egyptian journalist and editor based in London. She holds a degree in English and journalism and reports on the Middle East and North Africa. Republished from The New Arab.
Australian members of the Gaza flotilla arrived back home today and told news media of their abuse. Two of the three New Zealand members of the flotilla are due to arrive back in Auckland early tomorrow afternoon.
Three New Zealanders are being illegally held hostage by the Israeli military after security forces boarded more than 50 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid bound for the besieged Palestinian enclave of Gaza.
They have been named by the flotilla Aotearoa delegation as Mousa Taher, turning 39 next week; Hāhona Ormsby, 56; and Julien Blondel, 47.
All three were among the 428 humanitarian aid activists from 40 countries detained by the Israeli forces when they illegally intercepted the flotilla in international waters near Cyprus over the past two days.
Julien Blondel’s niece holds a “free Julien!” placard in French with a Palestinian watermelon logo at a flotilla solidarity rally at Place du 14-Juin in Lausanne, Switzerland. Image: GSF Aotearoa
Mousa Taher was aboard the Kasri Sadabat, one of the final 10 boats to be intercepted. A father of seven, Mousa left his children a message before being illegally abducted, writing on a sign for the livestream camera, “I love you”, and “Salaam Baby!”
His 11-year-old son has written a plea to the New Zealand government to intervene:
“To Mr Government: I want to ask you to please help my Dad, Mousa Taher, so his boat doesn’t get intercepted by Israelis. I miss him very much and I hope to see him untouched, not hurt, and in good conditions.
The people in Gaza deserve support, especially all the kids like me. Help my Baba to help Palestinians please.”
— From: Shay Yusuf. Age 11
Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.
Eleven-year-old Shay Yusuf’s appeal letter for his father to the New Zealand government. Image: GSF Aotearoa delegationEleven-year-old Shay Yusuf’s appeal letter for his father to the New Zealand government. Image: GSF Aotearoa delegation
Taher, who was previously illegally intercepted by the IOF on April 29 alongside Julien Blondel, returned to the flotilla for a second time.
Message to ‘fellow Kiwis’
Yesterday, before his illegal interception, Taher sent the Aotearoa delegation a message announcing, “I have a message to my fellow Kiwis and the New Zealand government.
Detained Mousa Taher . . . “Winnie. Luxon. What happened to our country. Don’t sell out please!” Image: GSF Aotearoa
“I’m on my boat which has humanitarian aid, on the way to Gaza to break the illegal siege of the israeli occupation forces.
“What I would like to say is that, for three years, I watched the uncontested demolition and obliteration of a people. It was on the TV for all of us to watch.
“Our government chose time and time again to do nothing. To be complicit, and to allow this to happen.
“There has been war crime after war crime, and yet the New Zealand government has been investing and shaking hands with these war criminals who are committing war crimes.”
“Our government has a choice. Are you going to uphold international law? Are you going to uphold humanitarian values? Are you going to be the New Zealand that we know and love?
“Or are you going to allow these oppressors to continue?… Please just be humans. And stop the killing of babies… this is my request and my plea. Kia Kaha, and we will see you in Gaza hopefully.”
The face of Julien Blondel . . . bloodied but unbowed, he and three other New Zealand peace activists along with dozens of other international Gaza humanitarian protest crew members were savagely beaten by Israeli soldiers who attacked the Global Sumud flotilla in international waters near the Greek Island of Crete last month. Image: www.solidarity.co.nz
Blondel abducted second time
Also abducted is New Zealander Julien Blondel, a dual citizen to Switzerland, who was beaten in the face in Israeli military custody after the first interception on April 29.
Despite the beatings, sexual harassment, and abuse that flotilla participants experienced during this abduction, both Blondel and Taher have returned to the flotilla to try and break the siege once more, the Aotearoa delegation said in a statement.
“They returned because they remain steadfast in their solidarity with the Palestinian people and their belief in a liberated world,” the statement said.
Hāhona Chris Ormsby (Ngāti Maniapoto), father of five children, is the third New Zealander to be illegally abducted.
Before the illegal interception, he said, “we are now only days away from Gaza… we need your eyes on us. Your eyes then become the government’s eyes on us.
Hāhona Ormsby at an Auckland pro-Palestine rally before leaving last month to take part in the Global Sumud Flotilla humanitarian aid mission for besieged Gaza. Image: Asia Pacific Report
“It keeps us safe. It keeps us out of harm’s way by the IOF… My freedom is not real if yours is denied. Free Gaza.”
The Aotearoa delegation said: “To echo Hahona’s words, we implore New Zealand to keep its eyes on the abducted flotilla participants to keep our whānau safe. We demand that the New Zealand government does everything in its power to protect them.”
Flotilla organisers demand release
The abducted participants are being taken to a port in Israeli-occupied Palestine.
The Global Sumud Flotilla organisers have demanded the immediate, unconditional release of all the participants, alongside the more than 9000 “unjustly detained Palestinian political prisoners facing a codified regime of state-sanctioned terror”.
What happened when the Israeli military attacked the Gaza flotillas Video: Al Jazeera
GSF has also called on world leaders to demand the release of the flotilla participants, the release of the Palestinian political prisoners and hostages and an end to the genocide and blockade on Gaza.
Meanwhile, the Global Humanitarian Convoy has been blocked on the outskirts of Sirte in Libya while attempting to reach Gaza. This is despite the unambiguity of the Fourth Geneva Convention: all parties are obligated to allow the free passage of humanitarian aid and personnel.
“The international community must act now and protect the lives of the vulnerable,” said the GSF. “Blocking humanitarian aid is a violation of international law both at sea and on land.
“Our governments must speak up.”
10 countries condemn Israel Al Jazeera reports that several countries have condemned the Israeli attacks on the aid flotilla.
The foreign ministers of Turkïye, Spain, Jordan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Brazil, Indonesia, Colombia, Libya, and the Maldives released a joint statement, describing Israeli forces’ actions as “blatant violations of international law and international humanitarian law”.
Israeli soldiers board a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla vessel and hold the crew at gunpoint. Image: Al Jazeera/Global Sumud Flotilla
Türkiye has condemned Israel’s intervention against the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla in international waters, describing it as “a new act of piracy”, reports TRT World News.
In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said Israeli forces had yesterday intervened against the flotilla, which was carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
Three New Zealanders were reported to be facing illegal interception — including Hāhona Ormsby, Mousa Taher, and Julien Blondel — according to Sumud Flotilla statement.
Israeli military pictured boarding the Global Sumud Flotilla yacht Abodes . . . a New Zealander, Julien Blondel, who was beaten by soldiers in an earlier Israeli interception last month, was reported to be on board. Image: Flotilla Tracker screenshot APR
The Turkish ministry said: “We condemn the intervention carried out by Israeli forces in international waters against the Global Sumud Flotilla, which was formed to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza and which constitutes a new act of piracy.”
The ministry noted that citizens from nearly 40 countries were on board the flotilla of more than 50 vessels and said Israel’s “attacks and intimidation policies” would not prevent international solidarity with the Palestinian people.
It called on Israel to immediately halt the intervention and unconditionally release the detained participants.
A live tracker image showing the moment Israeli forces started boarding flotilla boats. Soldiers can be seen boarding a boat in the central image. Image: Global Sumud Flotilla screenshot APR
The ministry also said Turkish authorities were taking necessary steps to ensure the safe return of Turkish citizens aboard the flotilla and were closely monitoring developments in coordination with other countries.
Israeli military attack
The Israeli army attacked the Gaza-bound Global Sumud humanitarian flotilla in international waters on Monday. Live broadcasts from the flotilla showed Israeli naval forces intercepting the vessels one by one.
Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported that activists detained aboard the flotilla were being transferred to a navy ship described as a “floating prison” before being taken to the port of Ashdod.
The Global Sumud aid flotilla demanded “safe passage” for its humanitarian mission to Gaza, accusing Israel of carrying out “illegal acts of piracy.”
In a statement, the flotilla said Israeli forces attacked the first of its boats “in broad daylight” in international waters while military vessels intercepted the fleet.
“We demand safe passage for our legal, non-violent humanitarian mission,” the statement said.
A Sumud Flotilla Aotearoa statement in Auckland last night said three of the boats being illegally intercepted carried New Zealanders on board. They were reported to be:
Hāhona Ormsby aboard the Diabolo Mousa Taher aboard the Kasri Sadabat Julien Blondel aboard the Abodes
“This is an illegal interception of a peaceful humanitarian flotilla sailing under international law.” said Phoebe McLean of the Aotearoa Delegation.
“We must speak out. We must protect our people. We must protect Palestine.”
‘Propaganda campaign’
In a background statement, the Aotearoa Delegation statement said this latest military interception followed a “coordinated week-long propaganda campaign” broadcast by state-controlled Israeli regime media outlets, and amplified by their own “self-proclaimed propaganda yacht filled with influencers spreading the israeli regime’s lies”.
“This established playbook seeks to manufacture consent to carry out war crimes and crimes against humanity against an unarmed, non-violent civil society mission composed of doctors, journalists, and humanitarians.”
The Global Sumud Flotilla legal team has formally stated that the participants are entirely unarmed, and any violence executed on these vessels remains the sole legal responsibility of the israeli regime.
Active criminal investigations are moving forward across 20 countries, and individual liability will also be pursued in international courts for all forces “enforcing this genocidal siege”, the statement said.
Also, the naval interception of the flotilla “occurs in tandem with an aggressive containment strategy on land”.
The Global Sumud Land Convoy — comprising more than 30 vehicles, including 7 specialised ambulances and 20 mobile homes — has been halted near Sirte, Libya.
Eastern Libyan authorities, reportedly acting under direct political pressure from Egypt, have positioned military forces to block the overland humanitarian route toward Rafah.
A screenshot of Al Jazeera coverage yesterday as Israeli military storm the flotilla boats. Image: AJ screenshot APR
