4 May 2026 (samidoun.net)
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network condemns the abduction of Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila of the Global Sumud Flotilla, part and parcel of the massive international piracy carried out by the Zionist regime and its occupation naval forces, with the complicity of the Greek state and the responsibility of U.S. imperialism and its partners in Britain, Europe, Canada and Australia, and calls for the broadest global action to demand their liberation and the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails.
In particular, we urge not only escalated popular mass and direct action to confront the imperialist-Zionist war machine, but also official action to expel Zionist embassies, particularly in the countries whose citizens have been abducted: Spain, Sweden and Brazil, and the imposition of a full arms embargo — with no exceptions — and an end to the trade in gas and oil that continue to fuel the economy of the genocidal settler regime.
The attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla, like the attacks on past flotillas to break the siege on Gaza, is a clear act of international piracy, conducted in international and foreign waters by the genocidal Zionist navy, and carried out with blatant disregard to international law and the law of the sea. Of course, this comes as no surprise, as the genocidal blockade and siege on Gaza and the ongoing military occupation and aggression targeting Palestine, Lebanon and Iran make clear, as does the 18-year history of popular civil efforts to break the siege via the sea. After the first two Free Gaza flotilla ships successfully arrived in Gaza in 2008, subsequent flotillas have been subjected to repeated military aggression and piracy; in 2010, 10 participants were martyred on the Mavi Marmara.
In the 2025 and 2026 flotilla efforts, detained internationals were subjected to torture, abuse, beatings, and sexual assault; after over 175 international participants in the flotilla were abducted from their boats by Zionist occupation naval forces, dozens of them were beaten, left with broken noses, ribs and bones, crammed into shipping containers, and then suddenly released on Crete — indicating coordination and complicity by the Greek government with the Zionist regime. Meanwhile, Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila were abducted by occupation forces and have been taken to occupied Palestine, where they are being held — while conducting a hunger strike — in Shikma Prison, otherwise known as Asqelan prison.
On 3 May 2026 they were brought before a Zionist court, which officially extended their detention. Both were bruised, with their lawyers reported that they were beaten, dragged and held in stress positions for hours. Both Abu Keshek and Ávila are members of the leadership of the Global Sumud Flotilla.
Saif Abu Keshek is a Palestinian-Swedish-Spanish organizer based in Barcelona, and is a longtime activist in the Palestinian liberation movement, chairing the Global Coalition Against the Occupation in Palestine. He has worked for years to mobilize Palestinians in exile and diaspora in the struggle to free Palestine. He is married and the father of three children.
Thiago Ávila is a Brazilian social and environmental activist who has been involved in campaigns for economic and environmental justice, including Palestine solidarity, over two decades of struggle. Married and the father of one, he is a prominent spokesperson for the Global Sumud Flotilla.
As we demand the liberation of Abu Keshek and Ávila, we emphasize that this is just a small part of the call for the liberation of all of the over 9,600 Palestinian political prisoners held by the Zionist occupation, who are routinely subjected to severe torture and abuse, including assassination, murder, and sexual assault, and who the Zionist regime openly boasts about its plans to kill through the new Prisoners’ Execution Law. The daily experience of Palestinian political prisoners — who have, now and in the past, included internationalist prisoners as well as Palestinian refugees and exiles, including those born and living outside Palestine — is one of starvation, repression, assault, denial of family and legal visits, and also of leadership in the Palestinian resistance struggle and the international anti-imperialist movement.
Given the return of over 175 flotilla participants to Crete after their abduction just outside Greek territorial waters by the occupation navy, we must highlight the complicity and involvement of the Greek government in the attack on the flotilla and on the ongoing genocide and theft of resources of the Palestinian people. Despite strong, widespread, historical and present-day support for the Palestinian cause among the Greek people, the Greek government, together with Cyprus, has dramatically escalated its military, resources and trade coordination with the Zionist regime, while Athens airport is adorned with Hebrew-language ads marketing Greek homes to “Israeli” tourists.
In February 2026, Samidoun international coordinator Mohammed Khatib was detained for a week on Crete and then deported from Greece after being told he had been declared an “undesirable foreigner” by the Greek government and banned from entering the country — an order issued silently one day following the Greek-Cypriot-“Israeli” tripartite summit in December 2025. Earlier, in September 2025, Samidoun’s international coordinator Charlotte Kates was detained and deported from Athens airport after being told upon her arrival that she was now newly subject to a ban on entering the Schengen area, despite being invited to deliver presentations by multiple Greek organizations.
The imprisonment of Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila poses a serious threat of significant escalation by the Zionist regime in its targeting of Palestinians outside Palestine, in exile and diaspora, as well as the repression of the Palestine solidarity movement. It is clear that Zionist embassies around the world are directly involved in demanding, advising and calling for the severe repression of Palestinians in exile and Palestine solidarity groups in states including Germany, the United States, Belgium, France, Britain, Australia, Canada and elsewhere, even as these imperialist powers are motivated to escalate their repression for ruling class interests.
Various sectors of the Zionist government, working hand in hand with imperialist security and surveillance agencies, as well as Zionist lobby organizations internationally, repeatedly incite the criminalization of not only Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni and Iranian resistance organizations, but of social movements and direct action organizations advocating for Palestinian liberation, including, notably, Palestine Action in Britain and Samidoun in Germany, the United States, Canada and elsewhere. They have repeatedly sought to ban and criminalize Palestinian organizations and are currently campaigning to ban the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, in Germany.
“Israeli” intelligence sources are responsible for the dubious “evidence” used to imprison the Holy Land 5 in the United States, where Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker continue to serve 65-year sentences for charitable work; Anan Yaeesh in Italy, who was just sentenced to over four years in prison; Mohammed Hannoun and his colleagues in Italy, who are held in pretrial detention, with several freed after Italian judges rejected the spurious “Israeli” evidence; and at least 12 Palestinians in Germany, mostly Palestinian refugees from Lebanon, targeted for their social and political activity and community ties.
Zionist officials have stated, in particular, their desire to imprison Abu Keshek — a Palestinian with Spanish and Swedish citizenship involved heavily in organizing Palestinians in exile and diaspora — for involvement with a “terrorist organization” after abducting him from a flotilla support boat. They have highlighted his role with the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad (PCPA), one of the grassroots organizations that aims to restore the role of Palestinians outside Palestine in the liberation struggle. The PCPA was one of the three Palestinian organizations in Europe designated by the Zionist regime in August 2021 — six months after the designation of Samidoun in February 2021, and two months before the designation of six Palestinian NGOs in October 2021 — as “illegal” or “terrorist” organizations.
On 21 January 2026, the U.S. government continued with its ongoing stream of OFAC sanctions targeting Palestinian organizations in exile and diaspora, Palestine solidarity organizations, charities inside Gaza, and individual Palestinians, including the Popular Conference of Palestinians Abroad as well as Zaher Birawi, a Palestinian-British organizer and leader of the International Coalition to end the Siege on Gaza, a longtime participant and leader in the Freedom Flotilla efforts to break the siege. As we noted at the time, “The designation of the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad is clearly intended as a direct attack on Palestinian organizing internationally, viewed as a serious threat to the continuing genocide, as well as against Freedom Flotilla campaigns that aim to break the siege.” Alongside the designation of Birawi, it was also a transparent attempt to fracture the flotilla campaigns and to remove Palestinians in exile from participation in such actions.
In the same way that Samidoun was designated a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” in October 2024, alongside Palestinian writer and organizer Khaled Barakat, these additional SDGT designations, issued by the U.S. Treasury Department, have been repeatedly issued in an attempt to fragment the movement, impose fear in the community, sever organizers in the U.S. from the global movement and suppress Palestinian and solidarity organizing. Those targeted just since 2024 for U.S. sanctions have included individual organizers and leaders like Majed al-Zeer, Mohammed Hannoun, Amin Abou Rashed, Israa Abu Rashed and Adel Doughman, as well as Birawi, Barakat, and many others in Palestine, Algeria and Turkey, and organizations including the Wa’ed Association for Prisoners and released prisoners; Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Organization; Samidoun; the PCPA; the ISRAA Foundation; the Charity Association of Solidarity with the Palestinian People; and charitable organizations in Gaza that had supported people confronting genocide with millions of dollars or Euro in donations.
These designations have particularly targeted the organizing of Palestinians in exile and diaspora, support for the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, and efforts to break the siege, including through direct action as well as through financial support, and they have clearly been a coordinated U.S. imperialist/Zionist effort with European complicity and participation. Of course, these sanctions on organizations and individuals come together with the ongoing regime of coercive economic measures targeting states that defy U.S. imperialism, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and other independent states that defend their right to develop and define their future, and are repeatedly subjected not only to devastating economic aggression but also direct military assault and aggression by the U.S. and “Israel”.
The Zionist regime is directly invoking these designations, both its own 2021 labeling and the 2026 U.S. sanctions, as a justification for interrogating and imprisoning Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Avila. If it is allowed to get away with this latest crime, or is met with silence or indifference, we can only expect an intensification of abductions of Palestinians in exile as well as internationalists, increased criminalization of movements for justice in Palestine, and the escalated use of U.S. sanctions and OFAC/SDGT designations as a means of suppressing movements.
The U.S. State Department issued a bombastically threatening statement on 30 April, as the Zionist entity was launching its military assault on civilian international boats, specifically calling upon and stating “expectations” for U.S. “allies” to carry out state repression against the flotilla, while referring to the OFAC sanctions against the PCPA as well as the verbal support for the Resistance in Palestine, Lebanon and Iran offered by flotilla leaders (which, we must note, is entirely legal in the United States.) The U.S. demanded that the flotilla and its boats be denied docking, refueling and berthing as well as legal repression, even as the Zionist entity was engaged in blatant piracy. The U.S. government also made clear its goal to threaten and suppress U.S. participation in the flotilla.
Regardless of all debates in the movement regarding the effectiveness of any given tactic, it is clear to all that direct action against the war machine must be escalated; it must be further clear that the attack upon and imprisonment of flotilla leadership, particularly on the basis of “terrorism” for rejecting U.S. sanctions and Zionist designations, must be met with global solidarity, as part and parcel of the campaign to free all Palestinian prisoners, to break the siege on Gaza, for the return of all Palestinian refugees, and to free Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Free Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila; free all Palestinian prisoners in Zionist and imperialist jails!
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
We reiterate the points below, made at the time of the designation of Samidoun and at the time of the designation of Addameer and five charitable associations:
The repression of Samidoun is part of a larger attack against the Palestinian diaspora, the Arab community and all internationalists that struggle for Palestine….It is part of the global struggle against colonialism and imperialism that will continue until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, the right of return for all Palestinian refugees and the liberation of all oppressed peoples and nations.
Like the Zionist entity fears the Palestinian resistance, so do the imperialist powers fear the Palestinian diaspora and their supporters that have been rising up again and again, especially since the start of operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the Zionist genocide. They fear a strong, popular movement that threatens their economic and political interests in Palestine and the region.
At this moment, we underline to comrades of the Palestine liberation movement in the United States: The response to “terrorist” designations of any kind cannot be to isolate the designated organizations, warn movement organizations against “coordinating” with them or refuse to speak about them.
This type of practice, justified as “smart” or “strategic legal advice” on far too many occasions, leads only to encouraging the U.S. regime to designate and sanction an increasing number of organizations and individuals, as it clearly indicates to our enemies that they can achieve their political goals by doing so. We cannot confront “terrorist” designations without understanding, quite clearly, that our enemies are not bound by the letter or spirit of the law, but are rather engaged in a genocidal war upon the Palestinian people as a whole, daily violating the greatest prohibitions in domestic and international law… The purpose of imperialist “anti-terror” law is not only to criminalize the organizations and subject them to financial sanctions and a starvation policy, it is also to alter and direct the politics and priorities of the movement as a whole.
For the solidarity movement’s work to be meaningful and effective, it must act to support the Palestinian Resistance organizations — and, indeed, to coordinate with them on the broadest possible level.
The response to these designations must be defiance, solidarity and refusal to allow our movement to accede to the US-Zionist-imperialist demands to isolate the resistance, isolate the Palestinian prisoners, and starve the Palestinian people through “legal compliance.”
Instead, we must redouble our efforts to escalate our resistance, support the intifada in the streets of the cities of the world, demand an end to the so-called “terrorist” list and the removal of all Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Iranian and other resistance organizations from such lists, stand with the Palestinian Resistance and all of the forces of Resistance in the region and the world, and demand the liberation of every Palestinian prisoner — and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.
Join the @samidoun_network channel on Telegram
*Israel continues to violate the Ceasefire agreement and international law. Demand the UN and US government use full authority to pressure the Israeli government to release the two remaining Flotilla activist, Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila, and immediately open the border to humanitarian aid.*
Email UN General Assembly:
https://wordsofjustice.org/campaigns/j4p/unga-protect-humanitarian-aid
Email US Congress:
https://wordsofjustice.org/campaigns/j4p/congress-oppose-us-wars4israel
Petition US Secretary of State: https://act.ayannapressley.com/sign/pt-gaza-infant-formula
*#Act2Protect so Peace can Prevail & Share Widely:* https://bit.ly/j4p-anti-war-actions
~ Janet
P.S. Contact me if you want to know more about Words of Justice.
(Contributed by Janet Kobren)
