Israel’s foreign ministry posted on X that “the deportees were citizens of Greece, Italy, France, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, Germany, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Austria, Luxembourg, Finland, Denmark, Slovakia, Switzerland, Norway, the UK, Serbia, and the United States.” The post included photos of Thunberg and other activists wearing white T-shirts and grey sweatpants.
9news.com.au has contacted the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade to confirm whether or not the Australian activists aboard the same flotilla were among those released.
Thunberg was among dozens of deportees to land in Athens, Greece, on Monday afternoon local time. Crowds of supporters gathered at the Eleftherios Venizelos international airport and chanted “Free free Palestine!” as activists disembarked one by one.
“That this mission has to exist, it’s a shame! It is a shame!” Thunberg told journalists and protesters shortly upon arriving.
“I could talk for a very, very long time about our mistreatment and abuses in our imprisonment, trust me, but that is not the story.”
Instead, Thunberg urged world leaders and ordinary citizens around the world to end their “complicity” with the “genocide” being carried out against Palestinians in Gaza.
“There was some dehumanising and violence and shouting,” Roos Ykema, a Dutch member of the flotilla who was deported to Madrid on Sunday, told The Associated Press.
“But we got the European treatment,” she added.
Her comments were echoed by former Barcelona mayor Ada Colau, who returned to the Spanish city late on Sunday.
“We were detained in a maximum security prison where there was no rule of law, they didn’t respect any of our rights,” Colau told journalists upon landing.
“But we know this is nothing compared to what the Palestinian people are suffering every day in Gaza.”
