How Western Intelligence Agencies Built the Global Jihadist Network

by José Niño | May 26, 2026

https://libertarianinstitute.org/articles/how-western-intelligence-agencies-built-the-global-jihadist-network/

Americans have been fed a comforting fairy tale about Islamic terrorism. Radical jihadists attack the West simply because they despise freedom, democracy, and the American way of life. This narrative flatters domestic audiences while conveniently obscuring a far more troubling reality. For decades, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel have armed, financed, tolerated, and tapped into Sunni Islamist extremists as geopolitical tools to destabilize rivals. The evidence spans multiple theaters and rests on declassified documents, congressional investigations, and credible investigative journalism.

The most thoroughly documented case is Operation Cyclone, the CIA program to arm and finance the Afghan mujahideen from 1979 to 1992. In a 1998 interview with Le Nouvel Observateur, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski confirmed that the CIA began aiding mujahideen opponents of the pro-Soviet Kabul government six months before the Soviet invasion—a calculated provocation intended to draw Moscow into an unwinnable war. When asked if he regretted supporting Islamic fundamentalism that gave “arms and advice to future terrorists,” Brzezinski replied:

“What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?”

Multiple intelligence agencies participated in this operation. MI6 ran covert operations supporting hardline commanders. Pakistan’s ISI served as the critical financial and logistical conduit—operating under the direction of Pakistani President Zia ul-Haq, who controlled ISI policy throughout the war. Saudi Arabia agreed to match CIA contributions dollar for dollar, a commitment secured when Brzezinski visited Riyadh in February 1980 and one that CIA officer Gust Avrakotos and congressman Charlie Wilson (D-TX) would fly to Riyadh to enforce whenever Saudi payments fell behind. Historian Steve Coll documented in Ghost Wars that Osama bin Laden informally cooperated with ISI-run guerrilla training camps on behalf of newly arrived Arab jihadists, with intimate connections to CIA-backed commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. The global jihadist network that became al-Qaeda grew directly from this infrastructure.

The Afghan theater was not an isolated experiment but the opening chapter of a longer story. The same networks it created spread rapidly to the next front. The Chechen insurgency of the 1990s was joined by Arab and Central Asian jihadists who had cut their teeth in Afghanistan. The most prominent was Ibn Khattab, a Saudi-born mujahideen veteran born in 1969 inʿAr’ar, Saudi Arabia, who left for the Afghan jihad at age 18 before entering Chechnya in 1995. Saudi-backed organizations funneled funds, and Gulf state charities developed during the Afghan jihad maintained, in some cases wittingly and in others not, support for al-Qaeda-affiliated groups throughout the decade. Several of the future 9/11 conspirators—including Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Ziad Jarrah, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh—originally sought to travel to Chechnya in 1999 before being redirected to al-Qaeda’s Afghan camps, per the 9/11 Commission.

While the Chechen theater illustrated how Western-cultivated networks could spiral beyond control, Washington was already running new variations of the same playbook elsewhere. Veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh’s 2007 New Yorker article “The Redirection” documented that the W. Bush administration, in cooperation with Saudi Arabia, launched covert operations to weaken Hezbollah and Iran by bolstering Sunni factions. According to Hersh’s intelligence sources, “a by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.”

Israel was running its own parallel operations against Iran during the same period. Foreign Policy magazine published a 2012 report by journalist Mark Perry drawn from CIA memoranda, describing how Israeli Mossad officers posed as CIA agents to recruit members of Jundallah, a Pakistan-based Sunni Salafi organization responsible for numerous bombings inside Iran. As one intelligence official told Perry:

“It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with. Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open.”

The same structural logic that shaped Afghanistan, Chechnya, and the Middle East has also played out in Central Asia. The Chinese government has accused the United States of using Uyghur Islamist networks to destabilize Xinjiang, with Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian repeatedly alleging American support for Uyghur militant organizations during 2020 and 2021. The U.S.-funded National Endowment for Democracy has provided grants to Uyghur exile organizations. NED co-founder Allen Weinstein acknowledged in a 1991 Washington Post column by David Ignatius that “a lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” In October 2020, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo formally revoked the designation of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist organization—a move Beijing characterized as evidence of Western support for Uyghur militancy.

Across Afghanistan, Chechnya, the Middle East, and Xinjiang, the same structural features recur. Western strategic interests converge with the short-term utility of Sunni Islamist networks. Operations route through intermediaries like Saudi Arabia, Pakistan’s ISI, or Gulf states, allowing Washington to maintain official distance. Blowback eventually arrives years later, paid in American blood.

The naive story about terrorists hating freedom serves domestic propaganda purposes while obscuring a far darker truth: Western intelligence agencies have functioned as architects of mayhem, generating instability abroad in pursuit of American primacy. If the world wants genuine stability, it must first acknowledge this pattern and demand that these agencies be held accountable for the chaos they have unleashed across multiple decades.

'Failure': Israel reacts with alarm as emerging US-Iran deal draws criticism

Israeli analysts and hawkish US politicians say proposed agreement falls far short of war aims and signals weakening Israeli influence in Washington

By Nadav Rapaport in Tel Aviv, Israel

Published date: 25 May 2026 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-reacts-alarm-emerging-us-iran-deal-draws-criticism

The emerging agreement between the United States and Iran to permanently end the war has been met with scepticism and growing alarm in Israel.

Reports over the weekend said the deal centres on a memorandum of understanding establishing a preliminary 60-day ceasefire, which reportedly does not address Iran’s nuclear programme.

The initial framework is also said to include ending wars “on all fronts”, including Lebanon.

The reported terms have drawn criticism from US Democrats, hawkish Republicans and Israeli commentators alike.

Amid mounting backlash, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that he had agreed with US President Donald Trump that “any final agreement with Iran must eliminate the nuclear threat”.

Netanyahu also said Trump had reaffirmed “Israel’s right to defend itself against threats on every front, including Lebanon”.

Trump, meanwhile, has defended the negotiations on his Truth Social platform.

“If I make a deal with Iran, it will be a good and proper one, not like the one made by Obama,” Trump wrote, referring to the 2015 nuclear agreement signed under former president Barack Obama.

“I don’t make bad deals,” he added.

'Failure'

But Israeli journalists and military analysts appeared unconvinced by the reassurances from either leader, with many portraying the emerging agreement as a political failure and a strategic climbdown by both the US and Israel.

Amos Harel, military affairs commentator for Haaretz, wrote on Monday that a deal would amount to an American capitulation and reflect Israel’s declining standing within the Trump administration.

Harel argued that the agreement falls far short of Netanyahu’s declared objectives when the war began in late February, including the collapse of the Iranian government and the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

Danny Citrinowicz, an Iran specialist at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), echoed that assessment, saying the military campaign’s architects “did not truly understand Iran”.

“The enormous gap between the declarations made at the beginning of the campaign and the agreement that will likely bring it to an end illustrates its failure,” Citrinowicz said on Monday.

"This war proved that Benjamin Netanyahu’s strategy has collapsed.”

Raz Zimmt, also a researcher at INSS, described the proposed agreement as “very problematic” for Israel and argued that Iran had succeeded in shaping “a new regional order”.

"The one who blinked first was President Trump, not the Iranians," Zimmt told the 103FM radio programme.

Veteran political columnist Nahum Barnea of Yedioth Ahronoth wrote on Monday that the emerging deal would represent a “defeat” for both Israel and the United States.

He wrote that Netanyahu and Trump “never imagined” that after nearly three months, Iran would be in a better position than it was before the war.

Barnea added that Israel was now “subject to the absolute authority of a capricious, hollow, desperate American president” and argued that while Israel still faces the challenge of confronting Iran, “Netanyahu is the last person” capable of leading that effort.

Security officials alarmed 

The criticism comes amid growing concern in Israel over what many see as the country’s diminishing influence in Washington.

On Saturday, the New York Times reported that Israel had largely been sidelined from the ongoing negotiations by the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, Haaretz reported on Sunday that senior Israeli security officials were alarmed by the direction of the talks and warned that “Israeli interests were not taken into account throughout the negotiations”. 

According to the report, officials expressed frustration that despite Israel’s joint military campaign against Iran, Washington had failed to prioritise Israel’s security concerns.

The officials are now said to fear that a US-Iran agreement could place restrictions on Israel’s future military operations in Lebanon and Gaza.

Israeli news outlet Ynet also reported that army officials viewed the proposed agreement as “a bad agreement for Israel” and were deeply disappointed by its reported terms.

According to the report, the Israeli military had already been preparing for a renewed campaign against Iran and believed the agreement would fall short of its strategic objectives, potentially leaving Iran as a “nuclear threshold state”.

David Bitan, a member of the Knesset from Netanyahu’s Likud party, acknowledged on Monday that expectations in Israel at the start of the war had been unrealistically high.

Still, he insisted Israel had achieved significant gains during the 40-day conflict.

Asked about Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities, Bitan said Israel would “have to deal with it again and again”, adding that he believed further rounds of conflict with Iran were likely every two to three years.

Trump Says It’s ‘Mandatory’ for Muslim Nations To Join Abraham Accords as Part of Iran Deal

The president threatened that if the accords aren't expanded, full-scale war will restart 'bigger and stronger than ever before'

by Dave DeCamp | May 25, 2026

https://news.antiwar.com/2026/05/25/trump-says-its-mandatory-for-muslim-nations-to-join-abraham-accords-as-part-of-iran-deal/

President Trump said in a long post on Truth Social on Monday that it should be “mandatory” for Arab and Muslim states to join the Abraham Accords to normalize relations with Israel as part of any Iran deal, and threatened that if the condition isn’t met, full-scale war will resume “bigger and stronger than ever before.”

Insisting on more Muslim countries joining the Abraham Accords as a condition for an Iran deal would likely ensure that an agreement won’t be reached, as the Gulf Arab states that haven’t normalized relations with Israel, which include Qatar, Oman, and Saudi Arabia, have long maintained they won’t do so unless the issue of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories is resolved.

After Trump’s post, a Saudi official told CNN that Riyadh won’t normalize with Israel until an “irreversible pathway” toward a Palestinian state is established.

The president said in his post that a potential agreement with Iran will “only be a Great Deal for all or, no Deal at all — Back to the Battlefront and shooting, but bigger and stronger than ever before — And nobody wants that!”

Trump said that during talks on Saturday with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan, he told them that “after all the work done by the United States to try and pull this very complex puzzle together, it should be mandatory that all of these Countries, at a minimum, simultaneously, sign onto the Abraham Accords.”

According to a report from Axios, when Trump made the proposal during the call, he was met with silence. “There was silence on the line and Trump joked and asked if they are still there,” an unnamed US official told Axios reporter Barak Ravid. CNN reported that Trump made the comment “in passing” and that it was not met with a response or acknowledgment from the leaders on the call.

Trump said in his post that the countries that he discussed joining the Abraham Accords include “Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates (already a Member!), Qatar, Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, and Bahrain (already a Member!).” He said that it may be “possible that one or two have a reason for not doing so, and that will be accepted, but most should be ready, willing, and able to make this Settlement with Iran a far more Historic Event than it would, otherwise, be.”

Trump added that Saudi Arabia and Qatar should sign a deal to normalize with Israel “immediately” and that other countries should follow suit, and even suggested that Iran could join the Abraham Accords. “By copy of this TRUTH, I am asking my Representatives to begin, and successfully complete, the process of signing these Countries into the already Historic Abraham Accords. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” he concluded.

Over 50 countries continued to arm Israel during genocide of Palestinians in Gaza: Report

Dozens of countries that ratified the Genocide Convention still supplied arms to Israel even after the ICJ issued a provisional ruling that Israel was likely committing genocide in Gaza

News Desk

MAY 23, 2026

https://thecradle.co/articles/over-50-countries-continued-to-arm-israel-during-genocide-of-palestinians-in-gaza-report

An Al-Jazeera investigation published on 23 May revealed that military-grade products from at least 51 countries and self-governing territories kept entering Israel even after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a provisional ruling over the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

In January 2024, the UN's top court ordered Israel to take all measures to prevent genocidal acts in Gaza. By then, Israel's brutal bombing of Gaza had killed more than 26,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.

However, countries across the globe continued to provide weapons and military assistance to the Israeli military, the Al-Jazeera report found.

Using Israeli Tax Authority (ITA) import data, customs records, and freedom of information requests, the Al-Jazeera investigation found the military-related goods were shipped to Israel from countries across Europe, Asia, North America, and South America, including from many that have signed the genocide convention.

In some cases, the military supplies originated from countries that had publicly imposed arms embargoes on Israel or had at least partially suspended arms supplies to the country.

According to the ITA data, Israeli arms imports increased after the ICJ ruling, in particular munitions imports.

The five biggest military suppliers to Israel—namely the US, India, Romania, Taiwan, and the Czech Republic—all boosted their shipments of military equipment to Tel Aviv following the ruling.

ITA data showed that 2,603 consignments of military-related goods valued at $885 million were sent to Israel between October 2023 and October 2025. Of those, $805 million worth came after the January 2024 ruling.

The consignments included ammunition, explosive munitions, weapons parts, and armored vehicle components.

According to Stephen Humphreys, professor of international law at the London School of Economics, there was "ample evidence that countries arming Israel may be complicit in international crimes, including war crimes and crimes against humanity."

"The most recent 'ceasefire' did not change this," stated Gerhard Kemp, a professor of criminal law at the University of the West of England.

Since the ceasefire reached in October 2025, Israel has continued killing Palestinian civilians in Gaza and creating conditions of life that could destroy the group in whole or in part, Kemp said.

This indicates that states still have an obligation to stop supporting Israel's war on Palestinians in Gaza, which has now killed at least 72,000 people. Tens of thousands more remain buried under the rubble of buildings Israel has bombed.

"Some states have a very narrow understanding of the duty to prevent genocide and are waiting for a judicial determination that there is a genocide in Gaza," Kemp said. “But the ICJ will likely take several years to make such a determination. The better view is to look at domestic legal obligations ... and international legal obligations and legal tools triggered by available evidence.”

Though the ICJ has not issued its final ruling, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory published a report in September 2025 concluding that Israel "committed a genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza."

The UN report asserts that "states are obliged to take steps to ensure the prevention of conduct that may amount to an act of genocide ... including the transfer of weapons that are used or likely to be used by Israel to commit genocidal acts."

Thomas Massie's defeat shows Aipac's enduring grip over US Republicans

Sami Al-Arian

23 May 2026

The Kentucky congressman's stand against US aid to Israel and the Iran war triggered a pro-Israel donor backlash that reveals how firmly the lobby still shapes Republican politics.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/massies-defeat-shows-aipacs-enduring-grip-over-republicans

In American politics, certain transgressions are tolerated. Challenging Israel is not among them. US Congressman Thomas Massie crossed that line - and on Tuesday, paid the price.

His defeat in Kentucky's 4th Congressional District was widely portrayed as another demonstration of President Donald Trump's continued dominance over the Republican Party. That explanation is politically convenient but analytically incomplete.

What happened to Massie was not merely a clash of personalities or a dispute over loyalty to Trump. It was the enforcement of a political boundary deeply embedded within the structure of American power. Massie had violated one of the deepest taboos in American politics: alienating the Israel lobby.

Unlike many politicians accused of dissent, Massie's divergence was not rhetorical or symbolic. It was documented through votes, public statements and a sustained critique of unconditional American support for Israel.

As the only member of Congress to vote against House Resolution 888 in November 2023, Massie committed a cardinal sin - rejecting the congressional resolution that affirms Israel's "right to exist" and opposes calls for the dismantling of the Israeli state.

The resolution passed 412-1, with even progressive "Squad" members including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Ayanna Pressley voting in favour.

Massie was also among a small number of members of Congress who opposed emergency military aid packages and several pro-Israel resolutions after 7 October 2023.

He also consistently argued that all foreign aid - particularly aid to Israel - violated both constitutional principles and fiscal conservatism. At a moment when Israel was carrying out what numerous human rights organisations, UN experts, genocide scholars and even former Israeli officials described as genocidal acts in Gaza, Massie openly opposed using American taxpayer money to finance the war.

In Washington, such positions are treated as dangerous deviations from the consensus on Israel - defiance that must be politically punished.

Support for Israel has been one of the most entrenched bipartisan pillars of American foreign policy. Since October 2023, the United States has poured tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel while shielding it at the United Nations.

The Costs of War Project at Brown University puts the direct figure at well over $22bn.

In Gaza, the health ministry and international observers documented more than 75,000 Palestinians killed and over 180,000 injured - countless left maimed - as entire neighbourhoods, hospitals, universities, schools, water facilities, electric grids and refugee camps have been systematically destroyed.

Massie did not simply challenge a policy, but confronted an entrenched power structure that has shaped American foreign policy in the Middle East for decades.

A familiar pattern

Washington has witnessed similar episodes before. Former Republican Congressman Paul Findley of Illinois lost his seat in 1982 after criticising Israeli policy and the growing influence of Aipac. Likewise, Republican Senator Charles Percy of Illinois suffered a similar fate in 1984 after tensions with pro-Israel lobbying networks.

In the past two decades, many Democratic members of Congress encountered the same fate. Cynthia McKinney in Georgia, Earl Hilliard in Alabama, Jamaal Bowman in New York and Cori Bush in Missouri all faced massive financial interventions after criticising Israeli policy or supporting Palestinian rights.

These cases are too numerous and too targeted to remain anecdotal. The system enforcing them is structural. Aipac's super PAC, which labelled Massie "the most anti-Israel Republican in the House", contributed $9m to the race alone. When the result came in, Aipac declared: "Pro-Israel Americans are proud to help defeat anti-Israel candidates."

During the Cold War, questioning anti-communist orthodoxy carried political consequences. Today, questioning unconditional support for Israel carries the same weight of orthodoxy in Washington.

The Kentucky race became the most expensive House primary in modern American history, with spending exceeding $34m. Yet the significance lies as much in how the money was mobilised and coordinated as in the sheer amount spent.

Press reports indicate that millions in outside expenditures came from networks aligned with pro-Israel advocacy organisations and donor ecosystems that have increasingly intervened in congressional races nationwide.

The campaign against Massie followed a now-familiar model: massive independent expenditures, relentless advertising blitzes, coordinated media narratives and efforts to portray dissenting candidates as extremists or unreliable actors outside the accepted boundaries of Washington politics.

Massie was not merely outspent but politically marked and strategically targeted.

These campaigns are not simply about defeating one candidate. They are designed to create fear and send a message to every member of Congress that opposition to Israeli policy, especially during wartime, carries severe political costs regardless of seniority, popularity or ideological credentials.

A shifting public

American public opinion has shifted dramatically against Israel. Multiple polls conducted over the past two years show a stark erosion of support, particularly among younger Americans. A February Gallup poll showed that sympathy for Palestinians had surpassed sympathy for Israelis for the first time.

Pre-election polling found that older Republican voters in the district broke decisively for Ed Gallrein, while younger and middle-aged voters leaned towards Massie - a generational divide visible far beyond Kentucky.

Even among Republicans, support for unconditional military involvement abroad has weakened considerably, especially after the escalation towards the war on Iran. A growing number of Americans, above all young people, view Israel not as a strategic asset but as a source of regional instability capable of dragging the United States into wider wars that serve no American national interest.

Massie reflected this sentiment openly. During debates surrounding the possibility of direct military confrontation with Iran, he warned that Washington was being pushed towards another catastrophic Middle Eastern war driven primarily by Israeli regional interests rather than core American ones.

In one widely circulated statement, Massie argued that Congress should not authorise military escalation without direct constitutional approval and questioned why American taxpayers and soldiers should bear the burden of wars initiated by foreign policy priorities disconnected from domestic needs.

After decades of war, debt and the decline of basic services, those arguments now resonate with far more Americans than Washington elites care to admit.

Israel's growing public relations crisis has intensified these tensions. Images from Gaza - where entire families have been erased, children buried beneath rubble and famine conditions imposed on a trapped civilian population - have transformed global public opinion.

South Africa's genocide case before the International Court of Justice further amplified international scrutiny, while major human rights organisations accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. For millions around the world, Gaza destroyed the myth that western human rights discourse applies equally to all people.

Facing this crisis of legitimacy, Israel and its supporters have invested heavily in narrative control across media platforms, digital spaces, universities and political institutions. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, himself an indicted war criminal, has repeatedly boasted about Israel's influence within western media networks and social media platforms. The struggle is increasingly one over information and perception.

In his concession speech, Massie remarked: "It took a while to find Ed Gallrein in Tel Aviv."

Massie was not simply conceding defeat to his opponent. He was identifying the terrain on which the battle had been fought. This was not merely a Kentucky primary race. It was an election shaped by national donor networks, foreign policy alignments and political enforcement mechanisms extending far beyond the district itself.

The wider message

Some commentators tied to the Israeli lobby attribute Massie's defeat solely to Donald Trump. But this narrative is both factually flawed and analytically superficial. Trump certainly played an important role - he endorsed former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein and repeatedly attacked Massie as disloyal, transforming the primary into a referendum on allegiance to the Maga movement.

Yet Trump alone does not generate more than $30m in congressional primaries, nor does he independently mobilise a vast donor infrastructure against a single congressman among dozens who have disagreed with him over the years.

A more accurate reading is that Trump's machinery converged with well-established Zionist donor networks and enforcement structures - what some critics now describe as the "Epstein Class": a nexus of billionaire financiers, political operatives, media influence networks and intelligence-linked figures whose loyalties often appear more connected to preserving Israeli regional supremacy than defending coherent American national interests.

Trump did not create the target on Massie's back - he just helped pull the trigger.

What happened to Massie exposes a structural reality long understood but rarely discussed openly: there are policy red lines within the American system, and Israel sits among the brightest. Crossing those lines carries consequences - coordinated funding flows, nationalised opposition campaigns, coordinated messaging portraying dissent as extremism, and political isolation.

But the implications extend far beyond Kentucky.

To Maga Republicans, it signals that "America First" has limits. One may challenge trade agreements, immigration policy, global institutions or even party leadership. But challenging Washington's alignment with Israel remains extraordinarily dangerous.

To libertarian conservatives, the answer is equally stark: fiscal conservatism and scepticism towards foreign intervention remain acceptable only until they intersect with Israel.

And to the broader Republican Party, the lesson could not be clearer: party discipline increasingly requires adherence to Trumpism and to a foreign policy consensus in which Israeli priorities remain deeply embedded within the permanent foundations of American power.

Massie was defeated for one main reason: he challenged one of the most protected structures within American political life. Once that occurred, the Zionist machinery activated with remarkable speed: enormous funds mobilised, opposition networks unified overnight, media narratives deployed and political deterrence established.

These are not passing phenomena. They discipline political behaviour. And as public anger over Gaza deepens and younger Americans continue breaking with old political orthodoxies, it is no longer clear that these instruments of political discipline can hold indefinitely in a society already entering a deeper crisis of legitimacy.

Yet despite Massie's defeat, the results of recent primary races suggest that Aipac's long-standing dominance over American politics may be waning. On the same evening, Chris Rabb - a democratic socialist, vocal Palestine advocate and open Aipac critic - won the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania's 3rd Congressional District against two Aipac-backed opponents.

Earlier this year, Aipac's campaign against moderate Democrat Tom Malinowski in New Jersey backfired spectacularly, inadvertently propelling Analilia Mejia - the race's most vocal Palestine advocate - to victory.

The ground is shifting and the lobby knows it.

Deported flotilla activists allege 'sadistic' sexual abuse and torture in Israeli captivity

Activists report being stripped, 'water-tortured' and dragged along the ground with bound hands and feet

By MEE staff

Published date: 22 May 2026 

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/sadistic-deported-flotilla-activists-allege-sexual-abuse-and-torture-israeli-custody

Flotilla activists who were abducted and jailed by Israeli authorities while in international waters have reported being subjected to sexual abuse and torture while in Israeli captivity.

Some 430 activists, who were held after Israeli forces raided the Gaza-bound Global Sumud Flotilla, were deported to Istanbul on Thursday evening. 

Footage showed activists arriving at airports clad in grey prison tracksuits and keffiyehs with their fists raised, as families and supporters greeted them.

Upon arrival the activists reported being fired at with rubber bullets, beaten and subjected to sexual assault while in Israeli custody.

Italian journalist Alessandro Mantovani, who is among the deportees, told reporters at Rome’s Fiumicino airport that he and others were “taken to Ben Gurion airport in handcuffs and with chains on our feet and put on a flight to Athens”.

He said that Israeli soldiers “beat us up. They kicked us and punched us and shouted, ‘Welcome to Israel’.”

Miriam Azem, from the Israeli rights group Adalah, reported that one of the activists “was forced to strip naked and run while guards were laughing”.

One activist said in a video interview that her hands and feet were bound as she was dragged by Israeli soldiers, adding that the cuffs were so tight that “my hands lost feeling”.

"They laughed all the time. Super sadistic," she told reporters. "They took off my shirt, took pictures. Mistreated us all night long."

Australian activist Juliet Lamont said she was “tied with cables, water tortured and sexually assaulted”.

“People had broken ribs, were tased in the face, and injected with unknown sedatives.”

Photos shared online appear to show activists who have sustained injuries from the alleged beatings.

Brazilian activist Thiago Avila who was detained by Israeli during a previous flotilla operation published a video in which he alleged that activists were “raped” by Israeli soldiers.

He said that there were “many cases of sexual violence … on the prison boat, on the way to the port of Ashdod”.

Adalah said that Israel’s “entire operation”, including the “unlawful” raid of the aid vessels in international waters and the "systemic torture, humiliation, and arbitrary detention" of the activists on board, constitutes "a flagrant violation of international law".

Global outrage

The activists’ release follows global outrage over a video circulated online of far-right security minister Itamar Ben Gvir overseeing the humiliation and abuse of the detained flotilla participants.

He was filmed waving an Israeli flag and confronting the detained activists as they were being manhandled and forced to kneel facing the ground by officers from the Israel Prison Service.

The footage sparked a backlash inside Israel, though it was largely focused on concerns that the video had damaged the country’s standing abroad.

It also drew condemnation from several world leaders, including officials from countries whose citizens were among those detained by Israel.

Antonio Costa, president of the European Council, said he was "appalled" by the footage.

Meanwhile, a number of countries, including the UK, Italy, Spain and France, summoned Israel’s charge d'affaires over the video.