‘They want to break our will’: Gaza flotilla activist tells of rape in Israeli detention

Anna Liedtke files criminal complaint in Israel over alleged attack by female guards and says abuse was intended to silence campaigners

T he third time Anna Liedtke was subjected to an illegal strip-search in Israeli detention, female prison guards forced her on to her knees, covered her mouth to stop her screaming and raped her, according to interviews and a criminal complaint filed in Israel .

She described hearing male guards laughing during the attack, which she believes they watched and may have filmed. It took place in an area separated from the prison hallway by a partially drawn curtain that her attackers had left open.

Liedtke, 25, joined a flotilla sailing from Europe to Gaza with humanitarian aid last autumn. Israeli forces intercepted her boat in international waters on 8 October and took her to Israel, where she was detained for five days.

The abuse and violence directed at flotilla participants in Israeli prisons, including rape, was intended to intimidate, Liedtke said. “It’s clear they want to break our will and silence us, making this so traumatic that we will never talk about Palestine again,” she told the Guardian.

Instead, she told friends and doctors within days. In December she became the first flotilla activist to talk publicly about rape in Israeli detention. More than a dozen others have reported sexual assault, most anonymously.

Now lawyers acting for Liedtke in Israel have filed a complaint demanding authorities investigate her allegations. Israeli law defines rape as all non-consensual penetration.

“There is no reason for me to be ashamed,” Liedtke said, in her first interview about the legal case. “Whenever we are silent, they will do it to another person.”

The complaint, sent to the Israeli attorney general, the Israel Prison Service’s legal adviser, the Department for the Investigation of Prison Guards (Yahas), and the commander of Givon prison, was a challenge to a “culture of impunity” for abuse of prisoners in Israel, said Liedtke’s lawyer, Muna Haddad.

“It is Anna’s wish to seek justice and exhaust all avenues to hold the perpetrators of these acts accountable. We also want to raise awareness and see how the Israeli system responds when faced with our demand to open an investigation,” said Haddad, a lawyer with Adalah, a Palestinian human rights organisation in Israel.

“Sexual violence and rape are recurring violations that have been perpetrated against Palestinian prisoners for nearly three years … We are now seeing an escalation where Israel is prepared to expand this conduct to foreign citizens acting in solidarity with Palestinians.”

By refusing to be shamed, Liedtke has transformed the attack into part of her activism, becoming a voice for those still in Israeli jails or who might be targeted in future. She said: “I don’t think [speaking out] will lead to the end of rape in detention. But as a political woman I feel a responsibility to talk about it and with that, fight against it.

“This is not just my personal experience, it is more systematic. And I cannot stress enough that it is way, way less than what Palestinian prisoners experience.”

Israel has normalised torture of Palestinians held in its jails, while officials have celebrated abuse of foreign activists and denounced the failed attempt to prosecute soldiers over a well-documented assault and rape .

The UN in May added Israel to a blacklist for sexual violence in conflict, citing abuse by security forces, including the rape of male detainees, and Britain this month raised concerns about sexual assault in Israel’s detention centres at the UN security council.

Australian police are investigating rape and torture allegations made by flotilla participants in May, and French prosecutors have opened a war crimes inquiry into suspected torture and mistreatment of their citizens in Israeli detention.

Liedtke was briefed by members of previous flotillas before setting sail from southern Italy on 30 September, on a large former ferry, with about 100 other activists. She tried to prepare mentally for the possibility of violence, including sexual assault, in Israeli detention, but later understood that that was almost impossible.

She said: “You can know that they will sexually assault you, and you can tell yourself, OK, they will do that. And in the moment where it happens, it’s like you’ve never heard about it. Because you don’t know how your body will react.”

Her advice to other activists now is as much political as practical. “You have to be convinced that this is the right mission. And in the end, understand that nothing can prepare you.”

On 8 October, at about 4.30am, she was woken by the captain announcing: “This is not a drill, the Israelis are coming.” They boarded the boat, sent the activists to the canteen and set sail towards the Israeli port of Ashdod, arriving in the evening.

Liedtke was taken for processing and said one fluent German speaker called her a “Nazi slut”.

The first sexual assault came shortly after, during a strip-search, she said. Israeli law requires consent from a detainee before a strip-search, Liedtke’s lawyer said. If it is refused, a senior officer must come to hear objections and authorise any subsequent search in writing. Strip-searches are limited to visual inspection of a naked body and must be in a closed room with only female officers present.

Liedtke said she refused to be strip-searched but was still forced to remove her clothes in an area only partly concealed by a curtain. Her naked body was visible to male soldiers walking past. “Some of them directly looked at us, while they were walking past,” she said.

She refused to sign papers for rapid deportation because they would effectively amount to an admission she had entered Israel illegally. Liedtke had been taken forcibly to Israel from international waters.

Later that night she was driven blindfolded and handcuffed to Ketziot prison, where she was strip-searched again, fully naked, without consent. “I told them I don’t want to do this, and they had searched me a few hours before, so why do they need to do it again,” she said. Those who agreed to the search were allowed to keep their underwear on, she said.

She was given prison clothes and taken to a dirty cell with no access to clean drinking water. Deprived of sleep overnight by loud music, and repeated searches of the cell, including with dogs, she could hear screams from other parts of the prison.

On 10 October, Liedtke was moved once more, to Givon prison. There she was again taken to an area only partly closed off from view by a curtain, and ordered to strip.

When she refused, guards pulled off her clothes, groped her and forced her to kneel. One of them inserted her fingers into Liedtke’s vagina and then her anus, Liedtke said.

“There were two and then later three female soldiers that told me to take off my clothes,” she said. “They started touching me. I said no. I told them I don’t want to be touched and that they were hurting me. Then they grabbed my hands, so I couldn’t move, then they pushed me down and I still tried to scream, and then they covered my mouth so I couldn’t scream.”

Humiliation added to the pain of the physical assault. “I remember the male soldiers laughing, just standing there laughing. I know they were able to see everything because the curtain was not fully closed.”

Liedtke believes the attack may also have been filmed because of the large numbers of security and body cameras used in prisons. Video and images of abuse and torture of detained Palestinians and activists have been published in Israel, by individuals and officials.

The activists were deported to Jordan on 12 October. Liedtke had been on hunger strike the whole time but said she wanted a cigarette more than food.

At a hotel in Amman the group were met by doctors and psychologists, and Liedtke took her first step towards going public, telling a friend and fellow journalist: “Make sure you include in your report that at least one woman was sexually assaulted.”

At home in Germany she decided to speak about the rape at a December conference on political prisoners. When she did, intimidation was replaced by unexpected relief, she said, “like a knot was loosening slowly”.

Other women from her boat got in touch to say they had had “the same experience”, and messages of support outweighed the attacks from strangers.

“I was worried about mean comments, especially as it was female guards. I was worried about people questioning if it was really rape. There were people on the internet arguing about what I experienced, how [they] would define it, but not in a way that influenced me a lot.”

She says she lives with trauma from the attack. “Right now, I’m OK. There are days when I don’t remember anything and there are days when I think it is never going to get better, but I think this is normal.”

But she finds strength in the political commitment that originally brought her on board the flotilla, reinforced by the joyful welcome given to one flotilla boat that washed up empty on Gaza’s beaches. “This was worth it. Everything I went through was worth it for bringing at least a little hope, that the next flotilla will come.”

The Israeli military “rejects allegations of abuse” by forces who intercepted Liedtke’s flotilla, a spokesperson said, referring further questions to the Israel Prison Service (IPS).

An IPS spokesperson said: “The allegations described in your inquiry are categorically denied and are entirely unsubstantiated,” and the IPS “rejects any allegation of rape, sexual assault or systematic abuse by its personnel”.

Information and support for anyone affected by rape or sexual abuse issues is available from the following organisations. In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support on 0808 500 2222 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland , or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland . In the US, Rainn offers support on 800-656-4673. In Australia, support is available at 1800Respect (1800 737 732). Other international helplines can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html