On Saturday, six members of the Basque delegation to the Global Sumud Flotilla landed at Bilbao airport after being deported from Israel via Turkey. Supporters and family members had gathered in the arrivals terminal to welcome them home. A relative tried to cross a barrier to embrace one of the returning activists. A police officer blocked him. Scuffles followed. What came next was caught on video: Basque regional police dragging people across the terminal floor and striking them with batons. Four were arrested. Spain’s Interior Department opened an investigation into whether its officers’ conduct complied with regulations.
This was, to put it mildly, an awkward moment for Madrid. Three days earlier, Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares had described Israel’s treatment of those same activists as “monstrous,” “inhumane,” and “disgraceful.” Spain had summoned Israel’s chargé d’affaires. The Spanish government had positioned itself as the conscience of Europe on this particular issue. And then its regional police were on camera doing the baton-swinging at an airport arrivals hall.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry, with the restraint for which it is not known, demanded an explanation from the Spanish government for its treatment of what it called “flotilla anarchists,” adding that said anarchists “bring provocation and chaos everywhere.” This is not an assessment one is required to share in full. But it is, as of Saturday, harder to dismiss entirely.
Some context is in order, because this flotilla’s backstory is something.
The Global Sumud Flotilla, launched from Barcelona in April as the second attempt in under a year to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza, was intercepted by Israeli naval forces in international waters near Crete on April 30. Twenty-two of the roughly 58 vessels were seized. Around 175 activists were detained and eventually deported, most of them through Greece, then Turkey. Two organizers were brought to Israel for questioning: Saif Abu Keshek, suspected of affiliation with a terrorist organization, and Brazilian activist Thiago Avila, suspected of illegal activity.
Avila is an interesting figure to have at the center of this. Before the boats were even intercepted, while they were still making their way from Barcelona, a Palestinian solidarity group called Heart of Falastin had accused Avila of sexual misconduct with at least three volunteers aboard the flotilla. Avila, 39, is a member of the flotilla’s steering committee — its highest governing body — and had left his wife and two-year-old daughter in Brazil to embark on what was, by this point, his fourth voyage since June, including two attempts to reach Gaza and a trip to Cuba. He denied the allegations to the New York Post from his phone while still sailing off the coast of Spain, and noted that his marriage is open. The flotilla’s Ethics Committee conducted an expedited investigation — at sea, mid-mission — and found no wrongdoing. The accusation did not come from Israeli intelligence. It came from a Palestinian group. “Have sex with whoever you want,” Heart of Falastin wrote. “But to do it on the boat” was the part they objected to.
Then there was what Israel’s Foreign Ministry described as the flotilla’s “medical aid,” which it said consisted of condoms and drugs, posting a video to X by way of illustration. The flotilla’s organizers claimed to be carrying approximately 300 tons of humanitarian cargo across more than a hundred boats. That is not nothing, but it is also, for a mission billed as the largest civilian maritime intervention in history, a figure that invites reflection. Gaza received far more than that through land crossings on an ordinary prewar day. The flotilla’s value was always primarily symbolic. What the symbol was communicating is a more open question than its participants seemed to believe.
None of which is to excuse what happened after the interception. National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir posted a video to X showing dozens of detained activists kneeling on the ground at Ashdod port, hands bound, as he stood over them waving a large Israeli flag and shouted “Welcome to Israel! We are in charge here!” A woman can be heard crying in the background. He urged guards not to be “bothered by their screams.” Germany, the UK, Greece, and Spain all condemned the footage. So did voices within Israel. Netanyahu himself called the conduct “not in line with Israel’s values,” which is something Netanyahu does not often say out loud about his coalition partners. Ben-Gvir has since been banned from entering France. His travel options are narrowing.
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Welcome to Israel ?? pic.twitter.com/7Hf8cAg7fC
— ????? ?? ???? (@itamarbengvir) May 20, 2026
Ben-Gvir’s video was indefensible, and the condemnation of it was warranted. Taunting bound detainees on camera, whatever one thinks of those detainees or their mission, is not a policy. It is a performance for a domestic audience, and a costly one. Israel has legitimate reasons to enforce its naval blockade. It does not need its national security minister turning every enforcement action into a propaganda gift for the other side.
And yet by Saturday in Bilbao, the other side was generating its own footage. Twenty other activists who landed the same day at Barcelona airport were welcomed without incident, and were met there by Spain’s culture minister. The Bilbao arrivals were met with batons. The left-wing Basque party EH Bildu condemned the police response as “completely unjustified.” The flotilla organization said what should have been a moment of reunion “was interrupted by even more brutality.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry found the whole thing instructive, and said so.
What one makes of all this probably depends on what one was already inclined to think. The flotilla was a humanitarian mission, a political provocation, and apparently also a floating interpersonal drama with a Palestinian-documented sex scandal and a drug problem, all at once. The countries that cheered it loudest are now contending with their own airport footage. The minister whose country intercepted it made himself the story in the worst possible way. Everyone, in short, behaved in ways consistent with their prior behavior, and the people of Gaza remain where they were.
UPDATE: Just for the record, here is video showing how the incident began. We see the released Flotilla activists posing for photos in front of the passenger exit door. As passengers start to leave, the police try and get the activists to move over and create some room for the other passengers to leave comfortably. The shorter bearded activist seems to have taken umbrage with that and shoved one of the policemen. The policeman then shoved back and at that point some of the waiting activist supporters rush the police and then they get pushed back by the police and… well, you can see what happened. Make of it what you will!
We see how the violence in the Spanish airport at #Bilbao started. The #Flotilla activists were posing for photos and when the #police asked them to move a little to allow passengers (some with children) to exit… all hell broke loose. Because psychos are gonna psycho I guess. pic.twitter.com/Iko51OfISU
— Jewlicious (@jewlicious) May 24, 2026
Oh no, why can’t we Jews be nice and polite to those who support terrorists who murder Jews? We must not do these things, for it might upset the goyim, and they will hate us. When these fools went to Egypt, they were beaten and never went back. Why do we always bend over backward to appear to be the nice guys? They just laugh at us. Well done, Ben Gvir.