Belleville’s Shahid Mahmood is safe and sound, after a horrifying ordeal onan international humanitarian trip to Gaza.
Mahmood spoke to Quinte News on Friday afternoon (our time) after arriving in Türkiye (Turkey) from Israel late Thursday.
“I’m part of Global Sumud Flotilla with a mission to provide humanitarian aid and solidarity with the people of Gaza.”
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Global Sumud Flotilla boat that Shahid Mahmood of Belleville was on
Mahmood says the flotilla included people from around the world and what united them was humanity.
“This is an unprecedented point in history where humanity is united on a single cause, irrespective of their nationality or other background or any other personal affiliation or interest.”
Mahmood, who was born in Pakistan, has lived in Canada for decades, including a long-time in Belleville.
He is the Co-Founder of Belleville for Justice and Peace, a grassroots social justice advocacy group that focuses on international human rights, peace advocacy, and anti-war activism.
He left his wife and children at the end of April for the aid mission and began in Türkiye (Turkey).
We asked what they had on the board with them, bound for Gaza.
“We have only humanitarian aid, which is mostly baby formula, baby cereal, medicine, women’s sanitary pads, clothing, and shoes for children, rice, canned food, oil.”
From Türkiye, he says missionaries gathered from around the world and set sail, meeting up with other boats from Greece.
Global Affairs Canada warned Mahmood and a feller Canadian from the G.T.A about the risk of the trip.
This is what people call the interception, what we call abduction. We were sailing alongside in the Mediterranean pretty much after leaving the port of Turkey. We were in international waters and we were around 60 nautical miles away from Gaza at that point. The first sign we saw that our internet was jammed. Our password for our router was changed, and we lost connectivity. We knew that this is a sign of something not right. Soon, we spotted a navy ship on the horizon, followed by some other small or what we call RIB (interception boat or something, which is their name). This is pretty much clear indication that they’re going to start the abduction. Following that point, three boats approached us. There were Israeli forces in their uniform—their very identifiable uniforms. They surrounded our boats. They announced, “who is our captain?” We declined to answer them. They fired shots at our windows. They broke one window and then repeated their demand. We continued to not comply, and they fired another shot at another window, and that window was broken. Then they said if anyone can drive the boat, they must move forward. At that point, one person came forward, and he said, “I can drive the boat, but I’m not the captain.” So, they took our boat, moved all of us to the navy ship through their dinghy speedboat. At that time, they handcuffed us with the zip ties, blindfolded us, made us sit in a kneeling position with our knees down and heads down and our elbows on the ground—painful situation on a metal surface. Presume that was the ship of some kind. Then they moved us in into a ship full of containers, that we later found out was a military navy ship. In that ship, there was a containment area—shipping containers on four sides and inside there’s a middle area where people were contained. There were about 100 to 150 people stuffed into one container each. There were three containers full of people, and the space was barely enough to stand.”
As part of their security protocol, he tells us they threw their phones in the ocean before being boarded.
The remainder of their items were thrown into the ocean by the forces, including shoes, backpacks, and clothes.
“There was no water for the people and there were just loaves of bread in a huge bag and the bag was thrown at the centre. When people were arriving from the boats, each one had to face a severe beating treatment which includes kicking, punching, slapping, and slamming them on the floor or on the wall of the container. We were horrified hearing when each person gets the beating and we hear their crying, their painful moans, and when they come there, completely broken down.”
He says people suffered broken arms and ribs, bad bruising, concussions, eye injuries, and most could no longer walk due to pain and exhaustion.
Mahmood says he was punched several times, stripped searched, and held in extremely painful positions, while zip tied.
They began rationing water and they requested water from the armed military members.
He says the guards flooded the floor with sea water and threw a flash grenade at them.
They were moved into cages at a different location on land and they were asked to sign multiple papers, which most did not do.
They were denied consular assistance at the second location.
“At that point, we knew that they are processing the final stage, but we were not sure whether they’re going to present us to a court, or they’re going to send us to jail, or they’re going to do nothing. Then they stuffed us into a bus, of course without water, they drive was almost 2 or 3 hours, and we sensed that we are on our way to be released.”
They were flown from Israel to Türkiye and were wearing prison clothes when they arrived at the Israeli airport, which he plans to be wearing when he arrives back at Pearson Airport in Toronto (likely sometime this weekend).
“Basically, our mission had multiple purposes. Humanitarian aid is, of course, one of the purposes, and second, tell the world that blocking a country from access is illegal according to international laws, and especially capturing, abducting, and attacking a ship in international water is a criminal activity. It’s like something that pirates would do.”
There are multiple international laws that are being discussed around this incident.
“We want people to know that the United Nations Charter, Geneva Convention articles 51, 52, and 53, requires that any nation, even if occupied, must not block aid coming in from any other external sources. It is illegal.”
We finished by asking Mahmood what he wants people to take away from the incident.
“The next step should be to stop shipping arms components through US to Israel, and impose two-way arms embargo on Israel. Then next step is to impose pressure, including sanctions, to Israel to end the genocide, period. That genocide must end. The blockade of Palestinian and Gaza people must be ended.”
(Screenshot from Global Sumud Canada)
