Trigger warning: Description of physical and psychological violence
“Who is the captain?” I was kneeling on the aft deck of our boat along with seven other hostages, hands behind my head, face pressed against the floor. Late in the evening of April 29, 2026, we and 21 other boats had been attacked in international waters in the Mediterranean Sea off the coast of Crete.
The first of the four marines who boarded the ship smashed our live-streaming webcam. After two drone flyovers with spotlights shortly before, they obviously knew the camera’s location. He threw it into the sea, and another then threatened: “If you don’t say who the captain is, this will be much harder for you!” The three men and one woman were about twenty to twenty-five years old.
The eight-member crew of peaceful activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla had trained for the boarding of the boat by armed soldiers: Provide no pretext for violence, no quick movements that could be interpreted as an attack, no objects that look like weapons—de-escalation. Everyone had taken their assigned seats. But we had also agreed on Sumud—to stand firm, to offer nonviolent resistance. So we had decided not to answer the question about the captain.
Suddenly, boots were next to my head. The person kneeling next to me was yelled at: “If you don’t say who is the Captain, I will taser you in the face.” I heard the crackling sounds of a stun gun. We hadn’t expected threats of torture. What should we do? No one said a word—out of sheer terror or because we were sticking to our agreement? Full speed ahead toward the prison ship, whose floodlights shone brightly in the distance. I knew: in a few minutes, the coolant in our diesel engine would boil. A deafening beeping —the overheating alarm. The soldiers were in a frenzy. The threat again: “Who is the captain? If you don’t say it, I will taser you in the face.” Again, no answer, despite the sounds of the taser.
Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights states: “No one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the threat of torture constitutes a violation of a core right under the European Convention on Human Rights. The report by the UN Special Rapporteur dated March 23, 2026, on the systematic use of torture by Israel against Palestinians since October 7, 2023, states in paragraphs 76 and 77: High-ranking Israeli ministers described torture as a “sacred duty,” investigations into torturers as treason, and the perpetrators as “heroic warriors.” A rabbi reportedly recited blessings, and the public largely rejected calls for investigations.
The repeated threats of torture against peaceful and nonviolent civilians on the Global Sumud Flotilla must be viewed against the backdrop of the attitude prevalent in Israel that there is a “right to torture.” Palestinians, however, face far worse treatment.
The UN report describes how Israel’s systematic use of torture against Palestinians since October 7, 2023, has reached the threshold of genocide as defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. It outlines how torture has become an integral part of the oppression and punishment of men, women, and children, both through mistreatment in detention and through a relentless campaign of forced displacement, mass killings, deprivation, and the destruction of all means of subsistence, aimed at causing long-term collective suffering and misery. A continuous regime of psychological terror is being created, permeating the entire territory, aimed at breaking bodies, robbing a people of their dignity, and driving them from their land.
This is not random violence. It is the architecture of settler colonialism, built on a foundation of dehumanisation and sustained by a policy of cruelty and collective torture – according to the report by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese.