Eleven Australians who were detained by Israeli forces while sailing as part of a flotilla to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza are expected to be deported within hours.
It was understood that the Australians, who were part of the Global Sumud flotilla and detained in Israel for three days, were on Thursday being transferred by bus to Ramon airport in southern Israel, where Australian consular officials would seek access to them before departure.
Israel planned to deport the Australians by charter flight to Istanbul, Turkey, overnight Australian time, where consular officials would again visit them at the airport to assist.
Neve O’Connor, Sam Woripa Watson, Anny Mokotow, Isla Lamont, Juliet Lamont, Surya McEwen, Zack Schofield, Dr Bianca Pullman-Webb, Gemma O’Toole, Violet Coco and Helen O’Sullivan have been held by Israeli forces since their boats were intercepted on Monday.
Joanne Jaworowski, Schofield’s mother, said she was relieved about her son’s release, but had not received any information about his welfare.
“It is almost unbearable for me to think about what he has gone through over the more than three days at the hands of the brutal Israeli forces, and I shudder to think about the even worse treatment that the 11,000 Palestinian prisoners suffer every single day,” she said.
“My heart will not be calm until I have heard directly from Zack that he is safe and unharmed.”
Jacinta McEwen, Surya McEwen’s mother, said “we are overcome with relief that our kids are coming home,” but added she was angry about the circumstances.
On Wednesday, a flotilla spokesperson said a total of 428 activists sailing on 50 vessels had been detained by the IDF after being intercepted and that their welfare was unknown.
A spokesperson for Adalah, Israeli human rights lawyers supporting the flotilla, said the Israeli prison service and state officials had confirmed that all detainees had been released from the Ktzi’ot detention facility and were en route to deportation.
The move to deport the activists came after Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, was widely condemned in Australia and around the world after posting a video of himself abusing bound activists captured from the flotilla.
In the video, dozens of men and women are seen kneeling in rows, with their foreheads to the ground and their hands zip-tied behind their backs.
Ben-Gvir waved an Israeli flag and shouted: “Welcome to Israel, we are the landlords.”
“I tell prime minister Netanhyahu give them to me for much more time. Give them to us for the terrorists’ prisons,” the minister said.
The Australian foreign minister, Penny Wong, said the images were “shocking and unacceptable” and that she had asked Australia’s ambassador to Israel to make representations to Israel to reiterate the government’s call for the release of the detained Australians.
Before news of the Australian detainees’ release was made public, the Israeli ambassador, Hillel Newman, condemned Ben-Gvir’s actions, but said the IDF’s interception had been handled with “great sensitivity”.
“No one out of the 400-plus people that were on the flotilla – no one was harmed,” he told the ABC.
“The interception itself was done with great sensitivity by the state of Israel, by our security forces.”
Earlier on Thursday, Newman addressed reporters at Parliament House in Canberra.
“There can be ministers in Australia, politicians in Australia, even part of a party that is ruling, that can do things that are disgraceful. The question is, how you respond and whether you condemn it. In this case, Ben-Gvir was condemned by the leadership of the state of Israel.”
He said Ben-Gvir’s humiliation of the activists had been “condemned by the government of Israel entirely”.
“It’s not acceptable, it’s disgraceful … it does not reflect our values … and therefore is condemned and declared disgraceful and harmful to the state,” the ambassador said.
