Thiago Ávila announces a new mission to Gaza: “Violence will not stop us”

Brazilian activist Thiago Ávila, recently liberated after arrest in Israel, announced that the Freedom Flotilla prepares a new humanitarian mission to the Gaza Strip. Even after facing detention, abuse and isolation in solitary cell, Ávila guarantees: “Violence will not stop us.”

During interview with Brazil agencyhe described the experience he lived from the interception of the “Madleen” vessel, in international waters, until his deportation. “All we wanted was not to be murdered at that moment,” he said. According to Ávila, the 12 activists were kept for more than 20 hours inside the ship under the escort of strongly armed soldiers. “Our belongings, electronic equipment and the boat itself were all taken by them, without any explanation, without right of defense. Coagic people to sign a document where they confessed to blame for the crime of illegally entering Israel, and it was never our goal to enter Israel,” he says.

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Avila also denounced what he called Israel’s “advertising maneuver”: “By the time they delivered water and food, they filmed to look like they were taking care of those people, who were actually being kidnapped. But right behind who was filming, the rifles were,” he explains.

Already detained in Israel, The activist went on hunger strike as a protest. “I refused to accept the food and water that offered us. First, because that was a piece of propaganda (…); second, because there are 10,000 Palestinians, including 400 children, arrested in infinitely worse conditions, without access to the minimum. And finally, we refuse food and water as a form of political pressure, to increase the sense of urgency for the release of all,” he says to the BDF.

As a punishment, Thiago was brought to the lonely under threats saying that he would not return to Brazil if he did not end the strike. “At Aylon’s prison unit, where I was in the solitary, it was a more violent team, they would throw me on the wall and say, ‘Welcome to Israel’ when I arrived. They used handcuffs in their hands and feet and closed the most to lock my circulation purposely. The driving inside the prison unit was to the push and kicks.

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Ávila also says that the conditions of the place were degrading. “Water was improper for consumption, beds and cell environment were infested with insects and bed bugs, which leave mark in the bodies of people, police and prison agents at all times entered to deprive people of sleep and so that they could not rest. They made a lot of noise, tried to intimidate and practice psychological violence so that people were going to be weeks, we would stay for weeks, There, they said we wouldn’t go out anymore. ”

Even in the face of repression, Ávila states that the mission had a positive impact. According to him, it was possible to bring “conscience to people about violations that the Palestinian people suffer.” “This state commits a series of violations and a mission like this throws light to this reality. Unfortunately, it is a reality of virtually any Palestinian family has already had someone imprisoned or in administrative imprisonment or judged by military and convicted cuts. It is a people who live under a terrible and cruel dictatorship that still fantasizes of a democracy in that region.”

The activist says that the new vessel, called Handala, is already being prepared. “We always want it to be like this: if Israel attacks our mission, knowing that the next mission will be greater. And that they understand that violence will not stop us,” he said. “For us, while there are children starving in Gaza, this is the fundamental mission.”

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The National Council of Human Rights (CNDH) of Brazil classified the case as a war crime and charged the suspension of diplomatic relations with Israel. In addition, the mission that determined Thiago had widely repercussion by exposing the situation of more than 10,000 Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli arrests, including children.

For him, humanitarian mission is a moral duty. “Flotilla has the motto” When governments fail, we sail, “and we will sail as long as Palestine is not free. Yes, we have a new mission, we will keep trying to break Israel’s illegal siege of Gaza, bring food and medicines and open a humanitarian corridor of peoples,” he said. Ávila also highlighted the importance of international mobilization: “I decided to be part of the flotilla, as an ally of the Palestinian cause, understanding that the fate of the Palestinian people will most likely be the fate of all humanity.”

He points out that although here, in Brazil, “we are also the target of the greed of those who want to take the land and the common goods of nature. Brazil has a seventh drinking water available in the world’s liquid form. Brazil has the largest forest in the world, the largest river in the world. Concludes.

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with agencies