It's A Lot with Abbie Chatfield
SURYA MCEWEN: 80 Hour Detention was "A Different Level of Aggression"
28 May 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What led Surya McEwen to attempt breaking the naval blockade for Gaza?
It's a Lot is recorded on Gadigal land. We pay our respects to the traditional custodians of this land and to elders past and present. We also would love to extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people listening today and remind you all that sovereignty was never ceded and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land. Hey, everyone.
Today's episode is kind of an emergency episode that we recorded yesterday with the incredible Surya McEwan. We spoke to him last year after he got back from an intercepted flotilla mission trying to bring aid into Gaza. He was physically and sexually abused by Israeli forces, and he's gone back again.
And you may have seen a video going around of Ben Gavir, who is Israel's far-right national security minister. of him mocking and taunting prisoners. And Saria was actually a part of the flotilla that was intercepted and captured by Israel in this instance. So Saria is back now and he wanted to come on the podcast to speak about his experience.
Please go and read about what others have been through as well during this horrific time. In particular, read about what's happened to Palestinian prisoners that aren't part of these flotillas that are just trying to live their lives in Palestine. But I thought it'd be great to get Saria on to hear details of what happened so we can have a personal story attached to such a huge headline.
So please listen, please share this. If you feel that would be beneficial to people in your life, share the information and yeah, here's the episode with Syria.
It's a lot.
Sariah, welcome back to the podcast. For anyone that's listening, if you haven't listened to my first conversation with Sariah from last year, please go back and listen to it. But right now, I've got the amazing Sariah McEwen here, who has been part of three slash four Floyd Tillers, we would say. Three and a half?
No, no, four missions. They just all didn't get to sail. Yes.
So four missions to try to bring aid to Gaza and we had an incredibly enlightening and disheartening conversation last year when you came in to the podcast studio in a sling and you'd been beaten by Israeli forces and now you've gone back again. which is amazing that you've gone back again. But this time you've been held for 80 hours, transferred between prison ships, prisons.
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Chapter 2: What experiences did Surya face during his latest mission to Gaza?
So I think it was a misstep on their part, but that was definitely their strategy.
What consequences even can be put into place?
I mean, there's going to be lots of legal challenges in different jurisdictions around the torture and abuse of participants. I can't go into the details of that too much because it's being built up by the lawyers. the amount of diplomatic pushback and the space. I mean, it's always this thing of
Trying to create a situation where governments that don't want to act are forced to act and then other governments that potentially do want to act but can't deal with the consequences alone have this collective sense of being able to lean more into challenging Israel. And we've opened up that space through the mission and how it's unfolded in a certain way.
But it's really hard to tell how that's going to evolve.
Yeah. Well, I hope there are some sort of consequences or some sort of change. So back to your experience in this mission. So you're on this prison ship and talk me through when you were let off the prison ship and then what happened.
um we they had taken a bunch of of us into isolation like from that from from the the prison yard that we were all held in and so our we were we were myself and a few others were fighting very hard to have the people return to us who had been taken who were being tortured and we didn't know
um what was happening with them and so sorry people on your ship had been taken separately but you're on the prison ship yeah there's like a there's like a prison where everyone is held in the yard and the containers and then some people have been taken into other rooms like in isolation oh for hours at a time for hours and for some of them like safe was taken for for over a day and then tiago was taken towards the end and some others had been taken um
The morning before that, so different amounts of time. Okay. But we refused to be let off until they were returned to us. And most, like all of them were except for Tiago and Safe. And so it was this negotiation with the Greek military who was off-boarding us into Crete. Um, but we weren't able to get Tiago in safe.
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Chapter 3: How did the international media landscape change regarding Gaza?
And so one of the memories that is most pervasive is being held, being like dragged by two or three different soldiers and then being held in these tents in stress positions and being held down And they're playing the Israeli anthem and all like singing along to it and laughing and kind of taunting people.
And you can hear people scream, like you hear people actually like being raped, who have been taken from this area and being tortured. And you hear the screams and they're blaring this. The Israeli anthem over and over again and like laughing and like the sadism of the soldiers, like the amount of joy that they're getting from like overwhelming suffering and power was so sickening.
It's so inhuman. It's like overwhelming. I remember being held down in that moment and hearing people's screams who were being tortured and then just being punched and kicked in the face over and over until I lost consciousness. And then kind of like waking up, still being kicked and then held in the stress position and you can't breathe. You're just sort of like face down in the dirt.
And then they keep repeating the anthem and chanting. It was so sick. It's like, that's horrible.
That is, yeah, the levels of sadism in that, that is so disturbing. Was that a different energy to what happened last time? Like obviously there's never been a kind interaction that you've experienced. But again, I'm not sure if it's because I've missed the reporting, but that sounds like it's more, yeah, the sadistic element of it and the mocking. Was it more severe?
Yeah.
I mean, as a collective, definitely. Personally, last time there were some instances of extreme violence. I got my shoulder dislocated and I was pretty severely sexually assaulted and had some really full-on experiences last time, but it was more random last time. And this time it was very much a collective thing. It was like no one would escape unscathed.
It was definitely an escalation on their part.
And the sexual assaults that happened, because we're hearing reports from a lot of people, particularly women who have been sexually assaulted and raped. How frequently was this happening? Was this a continued, you kept hearing people screaming? Was it assumed that it would happen to you, essentially, if you were there?
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Chapter 4: What were the conditions like on the prison ship after interception?
No, you are. It's so good to talk with you again.
It was so amazing. We'll put Saria's socials in the show notes. It's sale, what is it?
Saria Sales.
Saria Sales. Yes, from Gaza. Yes, I always go sale with Saria, but that sounds like a travel agent. You know what I mean? Like that's not what it is. But, yeah, go and follow Saria, follow his journey and support in any way that you can. Thanks so much, Saria.
Thanks, Natalie. It's a lot, isn't it?
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