"This is the most violent experience I've ever been through": Sam Woripa Watson safe after over 80 hours in Israeli detention

A First Nations organiser who was kidnapped by Israel while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza, has spoken of the abuse he suffered, which left him with a fractured rib and other injuries.

Wangerriburra and Birri Gubba filmmaker and activist Sam Woripa Watson suffered a fractured rib and other injuries, while kidnapped as one of 428 humanitarians abducted and detained by Israel while attempting to deliver food, medicine and baby formula to Gaza.

(Sam Woripa Watson in a hospital in Istanbul, shortly after arriving from Israel)

Israel’s actions have been condemned by international lawyers and human rights organisations as illegal. Gaza has been under an illegal blockade by Israel since 2007, where Palestinian men, women and children are starved and denied medical aid, as well as suffering an ongoing genocide which over three years killed tens of thousands of men, women and children. 

Over the almost four days Mr Watson was incarcerated, he was subjected to beatings, stun grenades being thrown at him, a barrel of gun pointed at his back, repeated verbally abuse (such as being called a ‘dog’ by an IOF soldier), psychological abuse, lack of food and water, and was repeatedly punched in the ribs.

On his release, he was treated at an Istanbul hospital, where he learned he had a fractured rib. He had bruised knees, and his wrists are sore from the handcuffs and zip ties used on him.

There were 10 other Australians kidnapped, with some now testifying that they were tortured, abused and sexually violated.

The other Australian humanitarians are Neve O’Connor, Anny Mokotow, Isla Lamont, Juliet Lamont, Surya McEwen, Zack Schofield, Dr Bianca Webb-Pullman, Gemma O’Toole, Violet Coco and Helen O’Sullivan.

They were released on Friday following international condemnation of Israel and its national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who was filmed mocking, and harassing rows of kidnapped humanitarians who were bent over kneeling on the floor with their hands behind their backs.

Speaking from Türkiye on Friday night Mr Watson told Black Witness:

“It was worse for so many people, and of course, what I went through over those days… well there are Palestinians who live under that every day. There are Palestinians who are prisoners in administrative detention and they never get an end to this violence.”

Organisers have said that Israel has been more brutal than past years of the flotilla movement.

Mr Watson is a key organiser in Blackfulla-Palestinian solidarity movements in Magandjin, and an activist for Indigenous liberation and other oppressed peoples.
He told Black Witness that his time in Israeli detention - first on board the prison ship, where he was taken to Ashdod port, and then to Ketziot Prison - was one of the most violent experiences of his life.

Mr Watson was on board a boat which had Aboriginal and Irish flags. It was one of the first boats intercepted by the Israel Occupation Forces (IOF) on Monday.

He was the third person to be transferred from the flotilla to the prison ship which over the next two days would gradually be filled with other kidnapped humanitarians.

“The violence escalated very quickly once we were on the container ship. We were immediately put into stress positions on our knees. There was verbal abuse. Our jackets were taken off and it was a cold day,” he told Black Witness.

Their passports were taken off them, and then they were thrown into the prison yard, moving through a “corridor of abuse”.

“I was punched and kicked as I went through and I think I felt a barrel of a gun slammed into my back. It was scary.”

But over the next three days, as kidnapped humanitarians were brought into the boat, “the violence escalated.”

“We could hear in the corridor of abuse people screaming and the sounds of the IOF yelling and laughing and using tasers,” Mr Watson says.

It was freezing on the prison ship and they would have to huddle together at night for warmth.

“They would flood the deck to wet us, and then they shot people with beanbag rounds in a really random way. Someone who was just walking around would get shot in the leg, and it happened to someone else.

“One day stun grenades were thrown at us. One landed between my feet, and I just saw a grenade.”

Through it all, he says he experienced both the “worst, but also the best” of humanity. There were acts of small resistance from those who came together to advocate for each other, even in the midst of horrific Israeli abuse and torture.

Mr Watson was in the port when Ben-Gvir arrived although he can’t see himself in the footage that has been released.

They had been forced to walk through Israeli propagandists holding TV cameras; Israel was boasting of its genocidal violence, which they have normalised and routinely perpetrate upon the bodies of Palestinians.

At one point, during the Ben-Gvir visit, he was taken into a small tent where he was punched repeatedly in the ribs by IOF soldiers.

“They were holding my hands above my head, slip tied together and I was bent over, and I just received like a bunch of punches into the right side of my rib cage, and It think that’s when I fractured my rib.

After that, he was taken out and made to kneel in the dirt and put in stress position.

The footage of Ben-Gvir mocking and saying ‘Welcome to Israel. We are the landlords’, has infuriated the world, but Mr Watson’s testimony, as well as the testimony of many others who were not just tortured and abused but also suffered rape and other horrific violations, show that what was caught on camera was only a small part of Israel’s violence.

(A still from the video of Israeli National Security minister Ben-Gvir mocking and harassing flotilla activists).

Despite Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong also joining the international condemnation of Israel’s violence against flotilla activists, the Australian government is still complicit in Israel’s war crimes and ongoing genocidal violence.

It is still, for example, part of the arms supply chain; Ferra Engineering, in Magandjin, manufactures parts for the F-35 fighter jets, which are used to kill Palestinian men, women and children.

When intercepted, Mr Watson was wearing a shirt with both the Aboriginal and Palestinian flags next to the words ‘Land Back’, in English and Arabic. It was stolen by the IOF.

He told Black Witness, that as an Indigenous person, his advocacy was part of an international Indigenous liberation movement.

“The Black Power quote from Magandjin is ‘if you’ve come here to help me you’re wasting your time. If you come here because your liberation is bound up in mine, then let us work together.’

“I heard that in training by a Palestinian talking about solidarity before we set sail.

“I feel like my body has always been on the line as an Indigenous person.

“In this mission, I decided I was going to use this position that I’m in as an Indigenous person to stand and work towards Indigenous liberation, and geographically it is moving towards Palestinian liberation, but politically it is Indigenous liberation and liberation for oppressed people everywhere.”

Despite his solidarity t-shirt being stolen by the IOF, when he was released, Mr Watson arrived in Türkiye in a grey prison suit. He had taken a marker, and written on the front: