WASHINGTON — Adnaan and Torleif Stumo hugged family and friends in the terminal of Washington Dulles International Airport for the first time in over a month on Friday morning, having returned to the United States following their arrest as part of a flotilla attempting to bring humanitarian aid to Gaza.
The Massachusetts brothers from Sheffield were greeted by loud chants and cheers: “Say it clear and say it loud! Adnaan, Tor you make us proud!”
The brothers returned home from Jordan on Friday after spending five days detained at Ktzi’ot Prison, an Israeli detention facility located in the Negev desert. As experienced maritime captains, they had sailed on two of the 42 boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla, each equipped with humanitarian aid for people in Gaza.
“Our boats were intercepted, our participants were detained, but our mission has not stopped. We returned with the truth: Gaza remains under an illegal blockade that denies over two million people the right to live in dignity,” Flotilla Media Coordinator Sumer Mobarak said at a press conference. “The boats may have been seized, but the movement has been sailing.”
Tor and Adnaan arrived home dressed in their white prison uniforms in solidarity with the one person on the flotilla who remains in Israeli captivity, as well as the 10,000 Palestinians held at the institution. They echoed many of the other flotilla member’s accounts of mistreatment during their capture and detainment.
If you’re friends and neighbors go on a flotilla, humanitarian mission to Gaza, this is how they will be treated by one of our greatest allies
Torleif Stumo
Israel denies reports of mistreatment of activists, calling them “brazen lies.” Israel’s Foreign Ministry has called the flotilla mission a “provocation” in statements on social media.
International and Israeli humanitarian organizations have declared Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide due to widespread famine and high civilian causalty. United Nations-affiliate Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) last month confirmed that at least 500,000 people in Gaza are trapped in famine. The World Health Organization and UNICEF have echoed IPC’s concerns, adding that the devastation is preventable by allowing aid to enter into Gaza. Over 67,000 people have been killed during the last two years, according to numbers from the Gaza Health Ministry.
“The biggest crime that Israel did was denying humanitarian aid to desperate, starving people,” said Nadia Milleron, the Stumo’s mother. “That’s a war crime. That’s why this is an illegal blockage.”
The return of Tor and Adnaan occurred after Israel and Hamas agreed to the first phase of a permanent ceasefire. Israel has agreed to withdraw troops from Gaza and return Palestinian prisoners in exchange for return of the remaining 50 Israeli hostages. Aid is expected to flow into the area for the starving population.
Inside the prison
Israel began intercepting boats of the Global Sumud Flotilla on the night of Oct. 1 and continued for over 10 hours.
Adnaan, 32, said he and the passengers of the Mikeno were thrown across the boat by skunk water — a crowd control weapon sprayed from water cannons that creates a foul odor — and water canons for nearly an hour during the captures. The power from the cannons felt “like punches in the back or the head when they hit us.”
“They [Isareli government] are afraid of the international response to their war crimes,” Tor said during the press conference. “The soldiers were under very strict orders, they did not, to my knowledge, on my boat hurt anyone because they are scared of an international backlash.”
When they got to the Ashdod port city, Tor, 26, said the soldiers were no longer gentle. The flotilla passengers’ hands were zip-tied and cuffed behind their backs. The cuffs on Tor’s wrists were so tight that he passed out, he said, showing the crowd the scabs and bruises around his wrists and hands.
“The tiny little marks that we have, multiply them by a 1,000 and you’ll get what the Palestinians go through,” Tor said.
Tor said he was beaten by Israeli soldiers after refusing to hand over his passport, which he wanted to give to his lawyer. Milleron added in a separate press conference on Thursday that Tor’s beatings continued. He has sustained temporary nerve damage in his hands from the continuous mistreatment.
“If you’re friends and neighbors go on a flotilla, humanitarian mission to Gaza,” Tor said, “this is how they will be treated by one of our greatest allies.”
The United States convoy from the embassy showed up four days after the brothers were arrested, Adnaan said.
“Not only did they tell us nothing but they actually lied to us,” he continued. “They said if we didn’t sign this wavier that Israel wanted us to sign, we could be there for a long time. It all turned out to be a completely BS.”
While Tor and Adnaan did not have any medications withheld, they did acknowledge that other flotilla members were denied access to medication, doctors and lawyers, with some having guns held to their faces. The Associated Press reported similar accounts by other flotilla members, including Italian journalists Saverio Tommasi and Lorenzo D’Agostino.
“I don’t want my kids to ever do this again,” Milleron said, voice shaky from the exhaustion and fear. “I already lost two to cancer and two to a Boeing air crash. I cannot loose my children. I will do everything to stop the money flow.”
