This activist spent 4 gruelling days in Israeli custody, but says he'll try again to bring aid to Gaza

After four days in Israeli detention, Thiago Avila was relieved to be back in Brazil. He'd been taken into custody, along with 11 others, and spent two days in solitary confinement, after they'd tried to bring humanitarian aid into Gaza by sea. Their vessel, the Madleen, was intercepted leading to what he describes as a gruelling stay marked by inhumane treatment and a brief hunger strike.

And yet, he told CBC News from Sao Paulo, he chose to be detained rather than sign documents admitting to what he considered a false accusation — that they had tried to enter Israel illegally. 

Some 20 hours after the vessel was intercepted, Avila, 37, says they were taken to shore and crammed into small police vehicles. He says they had not been given access to a bathroom and that one crew member urinated in the police car. 

"It was a very degrading [situation]," he said. 

Israeli police did not respond to a request for comment on Avila's time in jail.

They were taken to an immigration facility, he says, where former officers of the Israel Defence Forces demanded he and the others — noted climate activist was Greta Thunberg among them — watch videos of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas against Israel, which sparked the latter's war in Gaza, and a humanitarian crisis therein.

He says they refused — unless the officer they were speaking to would watch videos of what is taking place in Gaza. 

"I said 'If you don't watch the video of the genocide that you're committing, we don't want to watch the video that you are using to manufacture consent for your genocide,'" he said. 

The official refused, and the crew were not made to view the videos.

He says he was asked, again, by an immigration agent, to sign documents that said he'd entered Israel illegally. He would have been deported and banned from the country for 100 years if he signed. He again refused. Avila says the boat was in international waters when it was intercepted.

But the group agreed that some of them should sign so they could go out and tell the Madleen's story. 

"We didn't want to have no other voice telling the truth about what happened," he said. 

Four signed and were freed.

The others were taken to Israel's Givon Prison and placed in separate cells. Avila says the conditions were terrible — little to no access to water, which was darkly coloured; bed bugs that he says led to Scabies; and psychological torment by sleep depravation.

"They would come every hour or so just to make noise, make everyone get up [and] not be able to sleep," he said.

Avila says he was singled out for solitary confinement because he was one of the organizers of the mission and because he'd gone on a hunger and thirst strike.

He says officers told him that he'd be disciplined and offered him food on multiple occasions — bread, hummus and rice. 

Avila says he told them: "Since you're... denying food to more than two million people in Gaza, how can I accept your food and water?"  

For months now, aid has all but trickled into Gaza since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was broken in March. But the enclave has been blockaded for years, inspiring missions like the Madleen's bring aid to Gaza. Since 2008, only five boats have been able to make it the strip and sail back successfully. 

Avila says his solitary cell was was infested with rats and cockroaches. He says officers became more violent with him, pushing him around and threatening to take him to Gaza and put him in the notorious Sde Teiman jail. 

And yet, on June 12, Avila was released and put on a flight back to Brazil, to reunite with his wife and daughter.

He says he's already signed up for the next mission to Gaza. 

Before leaving, he told an Israeli official that they would see each other again "very soon." 

"We continue to have new missions and will not stop until Palestine is free."