KUALA LUMPUR: Activists on board the humanitarian aid vessel Al-Awda were allegedly beaten by Israeli soldiers using electric-shock weapons and also shot at.
Humanitarian Care Malaysia (MyCARE) chief executive officer Kamarul Zaman Shaharul Anwar said according to the ship's captain Zohar Chamberlain Regev, Israeli soldiers used violence against several mission members while they were being held.
He claimed there were bloody incidents as well when Israeli soldiers resorted to beating up the humanitarian mission members who refused to cooperate when asked to fire up the ship's engine.
"The latest information received is that three more Al-Awda mission members have been freed, two of them are Al-Jazeera reporters Merouane Metidji and Abdelmounim El Amrani and an American activist Joe Meadors.
"Malaysia's sole representative Associate Professor Dr Mohd Afandi Salleh is still being held at the Givon prison in Israel and we expect his release in a few days," he said in a statement, here, today.
On July 22, Al-Awda together with two smaller vessels; Huriyyah and Falastine, left the Messina port in Sicily.
Their journey begun May 22 in Copenhagen, Denmark and they have berthed at 28 ports on their journey to provide aid for the Palestinians in Gaza.
However, recently, the Israeli navy was quoted as saying that it had stopped a ship of activists trying to break its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
The ship was then said to have been rerouted to the nearby city of Ashdod.
The navy was said to have told the passengers that they were “violating the legal naval blockade,” and that if they had humanitarian aid to deliver, there were other ways to get it to Gaza.
The ship was carrying medical supplies worth RM61,000.
Among those on board were Norwegian politician Mikkel Gruner, orthopaedic specialist from the United Kingdom Dr Ang Swee Chai and former Norwegian athlete Prof Gerd Von Der Lippe.
It was reported earlier that two other mission members had been released; ship's captain Regev and former Israeli air force captain Yonathan Shapira.