A harrowing report. from an American Jew, afaiu. Highlights:

sailing eastward in international waters of the Mediterranean near the Suez Canal over 100 nautical miles from Israeli or Palestinian territory.

They smashed the CCTV cameras and cut the Starlink wires.

Meanwhile, a soldier carrying a camera followed us with his lens and taunted us, calling us terrorists.

Obviously wanting to control the narrative.

Over the next 12 hours we were held captive by rotations of three or four of the dozens of soldiers on board. Mostly young men, with balaclavas masking all but their eyes, they were fitted with rifles, tasers, cuffs, and other toys, which they played with absentmindedly.

One soldier permitted me to grab my notebook and pen from my bag, whose contents had been ransacked and strewn across the floor, on my way back from the bathroom; another later stood over me and demanded I hand it over, which I did—it held a few pages of shorthand.

Periodically, the soldiers ordered us to stop talking or they would withhold our bathroom breaks. As we became unrulier—whispered conversations and hums of Bella Ciao spreading through the room—one said, “We have been very nice to you so far, we do not want to use violence.”

When we arrived at Ashdod port around 7 or 8 pm, the soldiers ordered us to grab our bags and passports and marched us to the gangway to disembark. (…) At my turn, as the two women twisted my arms behind my back and folded me forward, I announced, in case some camera somewhere was rolling, “I’m a journalist, I’m press.” The woman to my left hissed, “We don’t give a fuck,” and the other dug her nails into my scalp and pulled me by my hair across the port.

Particularly harrowing: casual violence as entertainment for the IDF:

On my knees, with hands pinned behind me, my fingers and feet quickly grew numb. My press pass still hung around my neck and swayed in the night breeze. Twice one of the officers forced my head down lower, and I watched out of the corner of my eye as they roamed among the rows, shoving others’ heads while casually chatting and laughing. In Hebrew they commented on our appearances, called us Hamas, gestapo, and whores, and joked about our obvious discomfort as people shifted and vocalized in pain. A speaker blasted Israeli pop music. We were kept in these positions for some time, perhaps an hour. I later heard from others that agents had ordered a North African man to say “I love Israel,” and when he responded “I love Palestine,” they kicked him.

At Ketziot, we were separated by gender and placed in cages. (…) On the interior wall hung an Israeli flag. Above it, a large banner featured a photo of dark silhouettes walking on a dirt road between the rubble of former buildings. An inscription in Arabic read “Gaza al-jadeeda”: “the new Gaza.” We were divided into filthy cells and handed two pieces of bread, our first meal after more than 24 hours, which the five of us in my cell left aside, to be quickly overtaken by ants.

In the afternoon, we were grouped by nationality for haphazard and brief visits with our consular representatives—but first, we were made to stand in front of monitors in the cell block’s courtyard playing footage from October 7th on a loop. A shipmate had her fingers up in peace signs in silent defiance, and the guards sent her back to her cell. I asked, “Why can’t she come? She has a right to meet with the consulate.” He responded, “She is provoking me.”

Three times I asked for my daily medication and did not receive it.

Some remained in captivity for several more days and reported extreme brutality, including threats of rape. The last got out October 12th. The following day, Israel released nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in the first phase of the ceasefire agreement. All flotilla members are now free; over 9,000 Palestinians still remain imprisoned.

Probably in worse conditions.

To be fair, she often also mentions things that were OK, like being given soap, or small acts of relative kindness. But these mentions look tiny in comparison to the overall picture.