Surya McEwen

And we left with over 80 boats.

So the strategy was basically to build, like last time we ended up with, I think, 42 boats when we were getting close to the shores of Gaza.

And it was obviously a very difficult operation for them to intercept us and stop us to making it ashore.

Like some of us got really, really close.

And so our sense was that with 80 boats that we could break the siege, that we could find a way through and get aid to shore.

And around the place where they attacked, there was a drone attack last time on some of our ships just south of Greece where they were trying to destroy our sails and destroy our masts and stop the boats from carrying on.

Like the boat that I was on that mission got hit with explosives and was decommissioned because it damaged it enough that we couldn't carry on.

around that point which is in europe um they attacked us and they intercepted 22 boats and they took a bunch of us onto onto a big navy vessel that was kind of reconverted into a prison ship it looked like a prisoner of war camp it's basically a whole bunch of shipping containers with razor wire all around the edges and coming down into the middle a couple of toilets

a little yard in between them um on that first ship there was like moldy rubber mats to kind of sleep on but there wasn't enough for each person there also wasn't enough room in in the prison containers to be able to all fit so it's like always about a quarter of us were in the yard

and they'd be constantly like flushing the yard with um with sea water so if you're like sleeping on the outside you would get covered in water and they'd taken most of our clothes so everyone was like freezing um about a third of us were on hunger strike but the people who were who wanted to eat like there wasn't enough food and they didn't provide um you know enough water for people to drink no medicine everyone had their medicine taken from them

And there was quite a lot of violence over those few days collectively for the people who were taken.

And then all of the other boats, you know, some of them got into Greek waters and were able to dock, but they're like wondering what's happened to us.

We weren't sure if there was like another prison ship somewhere and everyone had been taken.

Like, it's really hard to know what's going on in those moments.

No, no, we have like nothing, yeah.

It was a shock that they intercepted us in Europe.

It was like already the way that we operate is we go from international water into Palestinian waters in Gaza.

So even when we're getting close to shore, that they come and attack us in international waters is like, is grotesque.

It's like highly illegal operations and it's basically piracy and kidnapping.

But the fact that they'd come a thousand kilometers from the shores of Palestine into Europe, attack a whole bunch of basically like aid workers, like people who were bringing aid into a besieged enclave in Gaza, basically a concentration camp.