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Gaza flotilla activists considering legal action after pleas for help ignored by UK government
Gaza flotilla activists considering legal action after pleas for help ignored by UK government
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Katherine Hearst
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Tue, 06/09/2026 - 12:30
Activists tell MEE that at every stage of their ordeal, the British foreign office and consulates ignored or sidelined them
Activists from the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla disembark a plane upon arrival at Istanbul Airport, Turkey, 21 May (Reuters)
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British Gaza flotilla activists and their families are considering taking legal action against the UK government after being "fobbed off" when they sought help from the Foreign Office following their abduction by Israeli forces.
The activists, who were detained in international waters while sailing to Gaza as part of the Global Sumud Flotilla, dismissed Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper’s claims that she had been in touch with their families.
Their families told Middle East Eye that repeated calls and emails to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) had been met with automated responses and that they had “got nothing” from the government department throughout their ordeal.
The activists reported that, following their interception by Israeli forces on 18 May, they were zip-tied and crammed into shipping containers aboard what they described as “prison ships”.
Some 200 people were forced to sleep in one container, with many experiencing and witnessing abuse by Israeli soldiers, including beatings and sexual assault, during their three-day long detention.
They recounted being stripped naked and sexually humiliated, kicked in the head and repeatedly shot with pellets. One activist was choked with a Palestinian flag and another subsequently hospitalised after sustaining a deep gash from being shot at close range.
UK response to Gaza flotilla
In a post on X, following videos that emerged from Ashdod prison of Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir taunting the detained activists, Cooper stated that the Foreign Office was “in touch with the families of a number of British nationals involved to provide them with consular support”.
She added: “We have demanded an explanation from the Israeli authorities and made clear their obligations to protect the rights of our citizens and all those involved.”
'I got no reply. I think in all, I wrote four emails, and then attempted to call them several times'
- Mary Mason, legal representative for flotilla activists
But flotilla participants and their families, who repeatedly tried to contact the FCDO before and after the activists’ abduction, reported that the first contact they had from the department came the day after Cooper’s statement.
Mary Mason, legal lead for the flotilla's British delegation, told MEE her team had contacted the Foreign Office with a list of flotilla participants' names prior to their departure, informing the government of their plans and asking for protection. They received an automated response.
When the flotilla was intercepted, Mason contacted the Foreign Office again asking for support.
“I got no reply. I think in all, I wrote four emails, and then attempted to call them several times. Quite a lot of participants called, very few got through. One or two did, and they were fobbed off,” she told MEE.
A FCDO spokesperson said: “We were appalled by the treatment of the British nationals aboard the flotilla, and summoned the Israeli Charge d'Affaires to make this clear.
"We continue to raise our concerns about the treatment of flotilla participants and the lack of consular access provided with the Israeli government.”
‘Distressing beyond imagination’
Hady Mohamed Fatouh Mohamed Awad, whose brother Karim was aboard the flotilla, told MEE he had contacted the Foreign Office once Karim's boat was hijacked.
“They told us they were aware of the situation, but there was nothing they could do,” Awad said.
FCDO staff assured Awad that they would meet Karim in the Israeli port of Ashdod to support him. But he heard nothing further.
'They reached out to the government and got no response from them, and the foreign office hadn't reached out to us at all'
- Cerie Bullivant, flotilla activist
Then the videos from Ashdod emerged, showing activists with their hands bound, crouching on the ground in the stress position.
“As a family member, seeing something like that is distressing beyond imagination,” Awad said.
“You don’t know what’s going on, you don’t know if he’s alive or not. And I’m talking to the FCDO and I’m not getting anything.”
He said that the FCDO told him that Israeli forces were barring them from speaking to the detained British citizens.
Cerie Bullivant, another flotilla activist, dismissed Cooper’s statement as “complete bollocks”.
“I've spoken to most of the other families, if not all of them. They had reached out to the government and got no response from them, and the Foreign Office hadn't reached out to us at all,” Bullivant told MEE.
He said that when his wife contacted the FCDO, she was told they could not speak to her because they did not have his permission to do so. She said the first contact she had from the government department was on Monday 1 June, when they emailed asking for Bullivant’s contact details.
“I'd been kidnapped at that time and I'm literally being tortured by people, so how am I going to get in touch with them to give them permission?” Bullivant said.
Mason said that the delegation is considering taking legal action against the Foreign Office for failing to protect the activists.
“If they are talking with us, then we might come to some agreement with them, but if we came to any agreement with them, it would include a public statement,” she told MEE.
‘I don’t want to die here’
Bullivant recalled that when his boat was intercepted, Israeli soldiers deployed “extraordinary violence”, beating crew members and firing at them despite the fact that they were holding their hands in the air and complying with the soldiers.
“They put me face down on the ship with my hands flat down on the floor,” Bullivant told MEE. He could hear other activists screaming, while he was tasered in the neck.
The flotilla participants were then taken to two container ships, which they described as “prison” ships. One was blue and the other red.
They said that conditions were harsher aboard the blue ship, where soldiers repeatedly fired stun grenades at the detained activists.
ככה אנחנו מקבלים את תומכי הטרורWelcome to Israel 🇮🇱 pic.twitter.com/7Hf8cAg7fC— איתמר בן גביר (@itamarbengvir) May 20, 2026
Bullivant, who was aboard the red ship, said that conditions were still “awful”, with around 200 people forced to sleep on the floor of a single container, without sleeping mats or bedding.
Israeli guards routinely flooded the floors, and would drop boxes of stale bread and bottles of water into the container. After repeatedly asking for female sanitary products, the guards threw one pack of sanitary towels in.
'They would either kick you with their steel toe cap boots in the shins or just punch you in the face, and that was the bare minimum at Ashdod'
- Cerie Bullivant, flotilla activist
He reported that his ship’s captain was shot in the leg after she walked “too close to some invisible line” in a small open space on the ship.
“It created this massive gash inside her leg,” Bullivant said. “She was screaming: ‘I don’t want to die here'.” Flotilla medics cleaned and bound her leg to stem the flow of blood, and demanded that she receive medical attention.
Bullivant said the captain required stitches, but that Israeli medics did little more than pack her leg with wadding.
When she arrived in Turkey three days later, she had to be operated on and was kept in hospital for days to repair the damage.
Middle East Eye contacted the Israeli authorities for comment, but did not receive one by the time of publication.
‘Penalty-kicked in the head’
Flotilla activists were then taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where, Bullivant said, the violence “got exponentially worse”.
He recalled that they were lined up on the floor of a container and then led out by soldiers one by one to be beaten. Bullivant, who described the victims' screams as "blood curdling", said he was repeatedly punched in the face as he was moved about the facility.
“People, just as they passed you, would either kick you with their steel toe cap boots in the shins or just punch you in the face, and that was the bare minimum at Ashdod,” he said.
He recalled one incident in which Israeli soldiers lifted a Brazilian woman up by her zip-tied hands. As she screamed, the soldiers laughed.
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“Then one of them penalty-kicked her in the head,” Bullivant said. Around 74 activists sustained broken bones during the ordeal, most of them broken ribs.
Hady’s brother, Karim Awad, said an Israeli soldier twisted a Palestinian flag around his neck and then used it as a shroud to cover his face when his boat was being intercepted.
When he was brought aboard the container ship, he said that an Israeli soldier searched him with a metal detector, using it to strike him between the legs.
He said once he was brought ashore at Ashdod, he was taken to a tent where around five soldiers kicked and beat him, with one soldier kicking him in the crutch and in the head, causing him to lose consciousness.
He was then dragged to a bigger tent and lined up with other activists in front of Ben Gvir, their hands zip-tied, crouched in the stress position as speakers blasted out the Israeli national anthem.
Whenever someone would call for help or for a medic, he said that soldiers would “slap our faces” and “stomp on our heads”.
The activists were transferred to a prison in the Negev desert. Awad said that there, he was repeatedly strip-searched, and instructed to squat while naked as Israeli soldiers mocked him.
‘Just for show’
When Awad arrived at Istanbul airport, he said there was a British consulate representative waiting with a list in hand, ticking the activists’ names off. He said he was not given money or a phone, so he had to call his family through a friend in Istanbul.
“I was trying to give my testimony to them, but they said 'can we do it later',” Awad told MEE. “I said no I want to do it now.”
'The British consulate did absolutely nothing. They didn't give them any money, they didn't even give them a cup of tea'
- Mary Mason
He said that the consulate staff member then went through the motions of noting down his statement, but he noticed she had only written a few words down.
Bullivant said he tried to report a sexual assault he had witnessed of another British citizen to a consular staff member. “They said, ‘Oh that’s really important, we need to take note of that, let’s get a piece of paper,’ and they wandered off and vanished,” Bullivant told MEE.
He said that he approached them three times, but they “just walked away”. “As soon as they collected the names, I didn’t see them again,” the flotilla activist said.
Flotilla press lead Ben Trowell, whose boat was intercepted off the Greek coast during an earlier round in April, noted that the consular staff who had met them on arrival did not offer them any help, beyond offering them use of their personal phones.
“They said the instructions we’ve been given is that you can borrow a phone, but we cannot help with flights, we cannot give you any money,” Trowell said.
“There was no point in them attending at all. It was all just for show.”
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“They didn’t have clothes, they were cold, they’d been beaten up quite badly,” Mason said, referring to the activists. “The British consulate did absolutely nothing. They didn't give them any money, they didn't even give them a cup of tea.”
Trowell said that, when they arrived back in the UK at Stansted airport in Essex, the activists were met with a heavy police presence.
“There were so many police in the airport, like airport police, all just staring at us the entire time,” Trowell said.
Essex police did not respond to a request for comment from Middle East Eye.
Trowell told MEE that he had booked a room at the Hilton Stansted for the activists to hold a press conference, but was informed that the police had instructed the hotel to cancel the booking as they said the group were planning to use it for a protest.
When Awad arrived back home, he tried to file a complaint with the police about his treatment in Israeli custody.
The police directed him to the FCDO. Awad said that he called them repeatedly, but the line kept disconnecting when he began recounting what happened to him in detention.
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