Australian activist to join another Gaza flotilla ‘as soon as possible’ after being deported from Israel

Documentary filmmaker Juliet Lamont, one of seven Australian activists deported to Jordan from Israel overnight, has vowed to join another flotilla to Gaza “as soon as possible”.

“We have a few boats but need to organise more and get a better strategy to break through the naval blockade,” Lamont told this masthead on Wednesday from Amman, Jordan, where she was reunited with her twin daughters on Tuesday after five days in detention after her boat was boarded by Israeli security forces off the Gaza shoreline.

“What we experienced is absolutely nothing compared to what the Palestinians suffer every day,” said Lamont, who is from the Northern Rivers in NSW.

“We have a moral duty to do everything we can as ordinary citizens to break the siege in the absence of our government’s complicity in this genocide, even if that entails injury and incarceration.”

On Tuesday, seven Australian activists who joined a flotilla that tried to land in Gaza were released from Israel’s Ketziot Prison in the Negev Desert and deported to Jordan, claiming Israeli authorities subjected them to violence – including a detainee suffering a dislocated shoulder – threats and maltreatment and depriving prisoners of sleep and drinkable water.

The Israeli foreign ministry called the flotilla a “publicity stunt” and said the activists were afforded all their legal rights.

According to Amnesty International, the seven Australian citizens who were held at the Ketziot prison in the Negev desert were Lamont, Abubakir Rafiq, Hamish Paterson, Surya McEwen, Cameron Tribe, Dan Adler and Bianca Webb-Pullman.

Webb-Pullman, a New Zealand-born GP based in Victoria, is expected to land in Melbourne on Friday morning.

The Australian lawyer representing the seven, Jennifer Robinson of Doughty Street Chambers in London, confirmed their release. Some of the group’s supporters in Australia also confirmed their arrival in Jordan on Tuesday night, Australian time.

“We welcome the release of our clients today – the seven Australian humanitarians – and are grateful to the Australian government for their work to facilitate their release and for the consular support they have received,” Robinson said.

“We remain deeply concerned by the human rights violations suffered by our clients during their detention, including physical abuse, threats of violence, sleep deprivation and other forms of inhuman and degrading treatment.”

Robinson is part of an international legal team including Kate Gibson and Nikila Kaushik from Doughty Street Chambers and Bernadette Zaydan of Zaydan Lawyers, who worked for the Australians while they were detained.

Speaking to the ABC on Wednesday morning, Lamont echoed Robinson’s claims of mistreatment by Israeli authorities and claimed the Australians were the last activists from the flotilla to be released.

Lamont claimed the Australian activists’ transport from Israel into Jordan was aided by other governments, and that the Italian government had been supportive.

Lamont called the Australian government’s help with the extraction “absolutely shameful” and said she was “really upset that the Australian government have been so shameful in their support for their citizens”.

A spokesperson for Foreign Minister Penny Wong said: “We are pleased they have been released from detention.” The welfare and treatment of the detainees were raised by the government in both Tel Aviv and Canberra.

The Australians were among hundreds of activists in 40 boats who sailed across the Mediterranean to reach Gaza, carrying a small amount of aid in a symbolic attempt to break Israel’s security cordon. Israeli forces intercepted the flotilla last Thursday.

Hajar Rafiq said she was “over the moon” after the release of her Sydney-based brother, Abubakir, who she said had suffered injuries to his shoulders and ribs.

“My body has been running on adrenaline for six days now, just not knowing what’s going to happen,” she said on Tuesday night. “I’m ecstatic. I’m just really relieved.”

Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg, a member of the flotilla, said after her release that she had been kept in a cell infested with bedbugs and given insufficient food and water.

The Australian members of the flotilla made statements to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade saying they suffered systematic abuse during their detention, including sleep deprivation, the denial of food and water, and physical violence.

In one case, they said, this resulted in a detainee suffering a dislocated arm.

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