France opens ‘war crime’ probe over Israel’s treatment of Gaza-bound flotilla activists

A screengrab taken from footage released on X in May by Israel's National Security Minister, Itamar Ben Gvir, showing dozens of detained flotilla activists kneeling with their hands tied behind their backs and their foreheads on the ground on the deck of an Israeli military boat.

PARIS – France has opened an investigation into an alleged “war crime” and “torture” over Israel’s treatment of French activists who took part in a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a prosecutor’s office said June 5.

The probe was opened at the government’s request, the national counterterrorism prosecutor’s office said, after activists accused the Israeli authorities of mistreatment during their detention in May.

Israel detained more than 430 activists from countries around the world after intercepting them in international waters on May 18 as they made the latest in a string of attempts to break the blockade of the Palestinian territory.

Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir sparked widespread condemnation after he posted a video mocking the flotilla activists while they were bound.

Several French activists described what they said was a violent and humiliating ordeal when eight of them returned to France on May 22.

Two of the more than 30 French people who were on board the flotilla were still in hospital in Turkey, they told reporters.

One returnee described a soldier groping and slapping her in a dark container, and being terrified that she would be raped.

Another recounted detained activists being put in what she called a “stress position”, on their knees with their foreheads on the ground for several hours, while the Israeli national anthem played on repeat.

French activists, deported by Israel following the interception of their Gaza-bound flotilla ,at Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport near Paris on May 22.

Asked by AFP to respond to the claims of physical and psychological violence, sexual harassment, assault and rape, the Israeli prison service said the accusations were “entirely without factual basis”.

Francesca Albanese, an outspoken UN expert on the Palestinian territories, has said the treatment of the flotilla activists “is a luxury compared with what is inflicted on Palestinians in Israeli prisons”. AFP