A plane carrying 161 pro-Palestinian activists deported from Israel landed in Athens on Monday evening, where they were greeted as heroes by crowds waving Palestinian flags and chanting slogans. Among the passengers was Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, who received flowers upon arrival but declined to comment directly on her detention in Israel.
“I could speak for a very, very long time about the abuse during our imprisonment, but that’s not the story,” Thunberg said at the airport.
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Greta Thunberg at the airport in Greece after returning from detention in Israel when she arrived with a flotilla to Gaza
(Photo: AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
Greta on her landing: 'Can talk at length about the abuse'
(Video: Reuters)
The activists were part of the “Sumud Flotilla,” a convoy of boats that attempted to sail to Gaza to “break the blockade.” The Israeli Navy intercepted the flotilla on Yom Kippur, detaining those on board.
Thunberg, who was deported from Israel for the second time after also joining a previous flotilla, accused Israel of committing “genocide.”
“There is a genocide happening before our eyes,” she said. “No one has the privilege to say they don’t see what’s going on. No one will be able to say in the future, ‘We didn’t know.’ Under international law, states have a duty to prevent genocide, and we are not seeing even the minimum effort from our governments. International institutions have betrayed the Palestinian people and allowed war crimes to happen. I will never understand how people can be so cruel.”
She added, “Humanitarian aid to Gaza is being blocked while people are starving. We want to emphasize that it’s not just humanitarian assistance that’s needed — we need an end to the blockade, to occupation and to oppression. We cannot look away from Gaza. This genocide is being enabled and fueled by our governments.” When demonstrators at the airport called her and her fellow activists “heroes,” Thunberg replied simply, “We are not.”
Another activist claimed she suffered both physical and mental abuse while in Israeli custody. “We don’t want to focus on what we went through, despite the negligence of our governments — because we were kidnapped in international waters,” she said.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators gathered at Athens International Airport, waving flags and chanting as the deportees arrived. A second plane from Slovakia carrying 10 other activists from the flotilla also landed in Bratislava.
According to Israeli authorities, 138 activists remain in Israel, with around 100 expected to be deported Tuesday through the Allenby Bridge crossing into Jordan. Once that process is complete, fewer than 50 participants will remain in the country. The Population and Immigration Authority, with the assistance of the Foreign Ministry, said that within four days, most of the deportations had been completed “without any cost to Israeli taxpayers.”
In recent days, allegations surfaced about poor conditions during Thunberg’s detention at Ketziot Prison — claims Israeli officials have denied. Britain’s Guardian reported that a Swedish source who visited Thunberg alleged her cell was infested with bedbugs and lacked sufficient food and water. Another source claimed a detainee said Thunberg was forced to hold Israeli flags while being photographed.
Turkish activist Ersin Çelik, who also joined the flotilla and was detained, told Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, “They dragged little Greta by her hair in front of us, beat her, and forced her to kiss the Israeli flag. They did exactly what the Nazis did.”