Sri Lankan activist Sameera Mehboobdeen has alleged that she and other international activists were detained and subjected to mistreatment by Israeli security forces while participating in a humanitarian aid mission bound for Gaza.<\/p>\n
She made these statements during a press briefing held on Tuesday (26) at the Palestinian Embassy in Colombo.<\/p>\n
According to her, the \u201cGlobal Sumud Flotilla\u201d set sail from Turkey carrying medical supplies and essential humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza. She said the mission was intercepted by Israeli naval forces while travelling in international waters.<\/p>\n
She claimed that the activists were taken onto an Israeli naval vessel where they were subjected to threats involving firearms, physical assault, and sexual harassment.<\/p>\n
She further alleged that communication systems onboard were disabled and that detainees were denied food and drinking water.<\/p>\n
She also stated that she was later held in Ketziot and Ashkelon prisons under harsh conditions, where overcrowded cells made breathing difficult.<\/p>\n
According to her, detainees were intimidated with guns and dogs, and in some instances faced death threats.<\/p>\n
She said that the experience represented only a small portion of what Palestinians in Gaza endure daily, emphasizing that such conditions have continued for years.<\/p>\n
She also expressed appreciation for the diplomatic efforts made by the Sri Lankan government to secure their release, while urging the government to formally condemn Israel\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sri Lankan activist Sameera Mehboobdeen has alleged that she and other international activists were detained and subjected to mistreatment by Israeli security forces while participating in a humanitarian aid mission bound for Gaza. She made these statements during a press briefing held on Tuesday (26) at the Palestinian Embassy in Colombo. According to her, the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1870,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1869"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1871,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1869\/revisions\/1871"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tamilmail.lk\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}