Amy Goodman
@DemocracyNow·3.2M subscribers·19.4K videos
"Designed to Break You": Gaza Flotilla Activists Faced Violence, Sexual Abuse in Israeli Detention
Posted
May 26, 2026
Views
27,431
Likes
1,696
Comments
365
Engagement
May 26, 2026
27,431
1,696
365
7.51%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
18:35Now PlayingSupport our work
"I could hear screaming the whole time." Our guests Alex Colston and Haitham Arafat spent days in Israeli custody after being abducted from a humanitarian mission sailing to Gaza. They share accounts of violence, abuse and torture at the hands of Israeli soldiers. "The process that they have there in the jail was designed to break you as a human," says Arafat, a Palestinian American activist born in Gaza who has taken part in multiple missions attempting to break Israel's long-standing siege. Over 100 members of his family have been killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023. While incarcerated, the activists were visited by Israel's minister of national security, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was recently banned from France after publicly ridiculing flotilla members. "They call us provocateurs, or they say we're terrorists … and yet, whenever Ben-Gvir shows up to these things, he's the one provoking us," says Colston, a journalist who was previously detained by Israel while sailing with the Global Sumud Flotilla last year.
Subscribe to our Daily Email Digest
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
