Eugene Doyle recounts the testimony of New Zealand activist Hāhona Ormsby, who says he was beaten, humiliated and sexually degraded after being detained during Israel’s interception of the Global Sumud flotilla.

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. Of the 430 activists from 60 countries, there were several who reported being sexually assaulted and many who will carry injuries for the rest of their lives. 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. Sadists like doing this sort of thing. It recalled the dreadful footage from last year of him intimidating the great Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti.

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........

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