Greta Thunberg and other Global Sumud Flotilla activists used an image of Israeli hostage Evyatar David to illustrate the suffering of Palestinian prisoners incarcerated in Israel.
The Monday Instagram post by GSF Steering Committee member Yasemin Acar, in collaboration with Thunberg and the main GSF social media account, included a still image of David from a Hamas hostage video originally published on August 3.
The still showed an emaciated David crossing off the days on a calendar posted on the wall of a tunnel in Gaza.
“The suffering of Palestinian prisoners is not a matter of opinion – it is a fact of systematic cruelty and dehumanization,” read the caption alongside the photo of David and two other incidents. “Humanity cannot be selective. Justice cannot have borders.”
David’s sister, Yeela David, decried the use of the image, calling Greta “stupid” and saying that it only “proved how people had no idea what is truly happening.”
“You should make a research [sic] before you post things you don’t understand about. In the sixth slide you put a photo of an Israeli hostage who Hamas starved on purpose. This is Evyatar David,” the hostage’s sister said in comments on the post. “Every minute you are not deleting the post, you are becoming a bigger joke.”
GSF activists call themselves ‘hostages’
The GSF post had compared the detainment of their activists on October 2 to that of Palestinians in Israeli prisons, asserting that over 11,000 Palestinian “hostages” had been held in harsh, unhygienic conditions and tortured.
The activists also used the story of Ahmad Manasra to illustrate their argument about Israeli abuses of Palestinian prisoners. The then-13-year-old Manasra had been arrested in 2015 for a Jerusalem stabbing attack during the so-called “Knife Intifada.”
“He’s just a child, confused and scared, facing adults who treat him like an enemy instead of a boy in pain,” read the Instagram post.
“The video captures not justice, but the breaking of a young soul.” The post came as Thunberg and other activists claimed that they had been “kidnapped and tortured,” according to Reuters, following the detainment of 478 activists who attempted to sail to Gaza on Yom Kippur.
Thunberg and 170 other activists were deported to Greece on Monday, and another 170 were deported to Istanbul. On Tuesday, a Jordanian state broadcaster reported 131 activists were deported through the Allenby Bridge crossing.
The GSF post also came just a few hours before Israelis commemorated the second anniversary of the October 7 massacre, when David and 250 other people were abducted by Hamas and other terrorist groups. David and 47 other hostages are still being held by Gazan terrorist organizations.
David’s sister recounted his kidnapping in a series of social media posts on Tuesday, remarking that her brother’s nightmare had endured for two years, writing her wish, “Just that they come back already.”
Sarah Ben-Nun contributed to this report.