Occupational therapist Dr Fatima Hendricks recounted her six-day detention in an Israeli prison following her abduction in international waters.

Hendricks was speaking at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville Campus, on Thursday. 

Six South Africans—Hendricks, Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandla Mandela, Zukiswa Wanner, Reaaz Moolla, Dr Zaheera Soomar, and Carrie Shelver—were captured by Israeli forces on the Global Sumud Flotilla.

Hendricks said the goal was to deliver aid and establish a sustainable humanitarian sea corridor, allowing subsequent aid boats to follow.

She said activists boarded the boats from Italy, Spain, Greece, Libya, Turkey and Tunisia. South Africans set sail from Tunisia. 

Hendricks recounted the harrowing experiences while being attacked by Israeli Occupation Forces in both Tunisian and Greek waters, and the interception of their vessel in international waters. 

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She was taken to Ashdod

Hendricks explained that she was denied her hijab and accused of being a terrorist. She endured paralysis from Guillain-Barré syndrome and faced breast cancer, undergoing a bilateral mastectomy and chemotherapy.

“They chose that particular moment in my strip search to mock my body. The female soldiers told all the male soldiers that I did not have breasts and what I looked like as an act of humiliation,” Hendricks said. 

She said she refused to sign any Israeli government documents. Her requests for consular and legal aid were denied, and she first saw a lawyer at her court hearing.

Hendricks said that they were put into a truck and shoved around. 

“They saw I was South African, they said, ‘welcome to paradise’,” she said. 

Hendricks said South Africans faced immense pressure, receiving consular services for only five minutes, split among six individuals.

They were denied medical care until they fought for it and had to get legal representation to get medical care.

Prison truck transportation

She also said they were transported in a prison truck with no ventilation for hours to Ketziot Prison in the Negev desert, near Gaza on the Egyptian border.

“When I got there, I was one of the first five that got into the cell, block five, cell number one. I shared the cell with Greta Thunberg. I shared the cell with Marie, an MP from France, with an activist, a lawyer from Tunisia (and) a captain  Anita” Hendricks said. 

She said upon arrival, reminiscent of Guantanamo Bay, they initially saw an Israeli flag in the courtyard. The following day, a large banner appeared, reading “Gaza al-Jadida” (the new Gaza). It depicted a bombed Gaza with a corridor and displaced people, representing their vision. They were subjected to the October 7th video playing on high volume 24/7, and sleep deprivation tactics, with guards barging in with torches every 1.5 to 2 hours.

Hendricks said some women were denied sanitary pads, and wrote with the blood from their period on the walls, Free Gaza, Free Palestine.

“We were then in a situation where food would arrive in the quad, and they would not give it to us. We were not let out. We were supposed to have an hour of air in the quad, but we were not allowed to. The only way we got out was when one of us had an appointment to go and do something with the soldiers, an administrative issue or something like that. We were locked in the cell 24/7,” Hendricks said. 

She said they were denied food and fresh air in the quad, confined to their cells 24/7. Their only escape was appointments with soldiers for administrative tasks. However, eventually they started getting food. 

Blood-splattered walls

Hendricks said there are many stories, and she tells them to understand the nature of the aggression and the occupation that has been going on for eight decades, and that the Palestinians have been subjected to.

She said they spent hours memorialising Palestinian prisoners. They read testimonies and narratives written in Arabic on the walls, detailing their capture, alongside their drawings. The quad featured a blood-spattered wall with a partial handprint, showing the palm and fingertips.

On October 6, the Department of International Relations and Cooperation learned that South African Flotilla participants would be released and repatriated via Jordan the next morning.

A Gaza ceasefire came into effect on October 10, ending the two-year-old war between Israel and Palestine in Gaza after a war began on 7 October 2023. 

thobeka.ngema@inl.co.za 

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