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Activists who boarded an international relief ship bound for the Gaza Strip and were seized by Israeli forces have alleged that soldiers carried out sexual abuse and other brutal treatment.
On May 28, the Korean chapter of the Freedom Flotilla for the Liberation of Palestine (KFFP), the Association of Physicians for Humanitarian Action, and Palestine Emergency Action held a press conference at Green Hospital in Seoul’s Jungnang District, urging authorities to seek an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Activist Kim Ah-hyun (known by the activist name Haecho) said male detainees were tortured with stun guns while women were sexually assaulted and raped. She said she heard soldiers taunting people and shouting orders, and she described hearing crew members being beaten. The screams, she added, were prolonged and left people gasping for air.
She also said a crew member who had been shot in the thigh received no medical care and his wound continued to worsen. Containers, she said, were full of people with broken bones, yet no treatment was provided. Although each relief ship had a single doctor on board, Israeli forces refused to release medical supplies, forcing medics to improvise emergency care with items such as plastic bags.
Activist Kim Dong-hyun said he heard people crying out in pain from torture and witnessed what appeared to be routine sexual assaults. “We were beaten repeatedly for five to ten minutes at a time,” he said, and blood kept flowing from hands bound with cable ties. He criticized Israeli journalists after encountering two reporters while disembarking a prison ship with his hands tied; he said the reporters simply looked on and did not intervene.
Korean‑American activist Jonathan Victor Lee (activist name Seungjun) also attended the conference. He testified that armed soldiers beat him and administered electric shocks in a dark container, fracturing his right ribs. He said soldiers forced detainees to watch fellow prisoners being beaten and used stun grenades and bean‑bag rounds—nonlethal munitions that nevertheless caused serious injuries.
“No one escaped abuse, and several people were subjected to sexual violence,” he said. “The physical and sexual violence we experienced was severe.”
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