STOCKHOLM (Reuters) – Swedish activist Greta Thunberg denounced on Tuesday that she and other detainees from the Gaza flotilla were subjected to torture in the Israeli prison where they were held.
Thunberg told a news conference in Stockholm that she and others were “kidnapped and tortured” by the Israeli army.
She declined to give further details, adding, when pressed, that she did not receive clean water and that other detainees were deprived of critical medications.
“Personally, I don’t want to share what I was subjected to because I don’t want it to be in the headlines and ‘Greta has been tortured,’ because that’s not the story here,” he said, adding that what they were subjected to pales in comparison to what people in Gaza experience on a daily basis.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, but has repeatedly denied mistreating detainees.
“All detainees… had access to water, food and toilets; they were not denied access to legal assistance and all their legal rights were fully respected,” a Foreign Ministry spokesperson told Reuters last week.
Thunberg was part of the Sumud Global Flotilla, a group of vessels that attempted to reach Gaza to bring relief supplies and draw attention to the plight of the enclave, where most of the 2.2 million residents have been driven from their homes and the United Nations says hunger is rampant.
Thunberg was detained along with 478 people from the flotilla and expelled from Israel on Monday.
Israel, which says reports of hunger in Gaza are exaggerated, has dismissed the flotilla as a publicity stunt benefiting the Palestinian militant group Hamas. He had previously detained Thunberg at sea in a similar attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza in June.
Swedish activists said Saturday that Thunberg was pushed and forced to wear an Israeli flag during her detention, but Thunberg made no mention of it during Tuesday’s news conference.
Thunberg and other participants also complained that the Swedish government had not provided them with enough help while they were detained.
The government said in a statement on Tuesday that it had repeatedly advised against all travel to Gaza but had nonetheless provided consular support to activists and stressed to Israel the importance of treating Swedish citizens well.
(Reporting by Johan Ahlander, Ilze Filks and Tom Little in Stockholm; additional reporting by Pesha Magid in Jerusalem; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)