Albanese Remains Silent on Australians Kidnapped and Tortured by Israel

Six Australian citizens sitting in boats in international waters close by the coast of Crete, a Greek island, were apprehended at semiautomatic gunpoint and taken hostage by Israeli soldiers on 30 April 2026. The Australians were then detained on a prison boat for two days, along with 180-odd other foreign nationals, who’d been kidnapped as well, and all were then subjected to torture.

But Australian prime minister Anthony Albanese and foreign minister Penny Wong made no complaints about the highly illegal kidnapping of their citizens, because our top Australian ministers are too scared to question the Israeli state’s lawbreaking. Indeed, if Anthony and Penny did speak up too loudly, backdoor machinations would likely see both lose their positions of power.

For the uninitiated, Israel kidnapped six locals in a similar manner last October. They, like those now, were sailing towards Gaza amongst a series of boats called the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF). They were beaten and imprisoned, whilst the PM and foreign minister said nothing. 

But the difference then was the boats were close to the Gaza coast, while this time, they weren’t anywhere near Israeli territorial claims.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade confirmed it would be providing the regular consular assistance it’s required to, around the time that these locals were being detained at sea on an Israeli prison ship. And whilst there is no law requiring federal ministers to act beyond DFAT, they are bound to ethical standards, which include acting with integrity, fairness, accountability and responsibly.

So, the new reality for Australians abroad, is that if an allied nation, like Israel or the US, do kidnap and torture them, the PM and foreign minister won’t say anything public about it, despite the flagrant lawlessness, and even if violence is involved. And while at first instance, this may seem like they simply don’t care, it’s more likely it’s because they’re too scared to criticise the US and Israel.

Kidnapping Australians – no biggie

“Two days ago, the Israeli government apprehended and kidnapped us in international waters,” said Neve O’Connor, one of the Australians taken hostage by Israel. She was speaking from Crete, and standing alongside fellow citizens Zack Schofield and Wiradjuri, Wailwan and Ngiyampaa man Ethan Floyd. O’Conner added that they were “600 nautical miles from Israel” at the time of interception.

Floyd added that he and the other Australians had just been dropped off at dawn on Saturday, 2 May 2026, after they’d been “beaten and tortured” by the Israeli soldiers detaining them on a prison ship, without even the suggestion of any criminal offence having been committed. And the trio were at that moment speaking in a hospital on the Greek island of Crete, as they were seeking treatment.

“We are all as physically okay as you can be after that experience,” Schofield explained in the footage captured on Saturday morning. “But two of our comrades, Thiago and Saif, have been identified as leaders of the movement and remain on that prison ship. We believe they are likely being taken to Israel and being beaten and tortured.”

Global Sumud Flotilla participants Brazilian man Thiago Avila and Spanish national Saif Abu Keshek remained in IDF custody in Israel as of Thursday, 7 May 2026. And during their recent appearances before the global press, the pair, who had then been illegally held hostage under international law for a week, appeared extremely demoralised with obvious signs of physical and mental torture.

In posting the footage, the three Australian GSF participants further sought to let their families know they were alive and well, which was necessitated because the government wasn’t keeping the public updated on these highly inflammatory and illegal actions of an allied nation.

Indeed, Neve had been kneed in the face. Ethan had been beaten and roughed up. And all three were tortured by forcing them to assume stress positions.

Pirates brutalising Australians. So what?

“When we were taken on a prison ship, there were three shipping containers that were able to contain about three quarters of the 181 of us taken aboard that prison ship for sleeping and they were packed in like sardines,” Schofield later described online.

“The rest were expected to sleep outside on the ground, which I did, and during the nights that we were there, they flooded the decks with sea water to wake people up and prevent them from sleeping.”

Schofield then spoke on the singling out of the assumed leaders of the Global Sumud Flotilla and men of colour, who were all taken to a prison chamber on the ship and severely beaten and bashed, with all the other hostages having had no choice but to witness the severe screams of pain coming from these men being tortured and brutalised.

Australian citizen Surya McEwen was singled out for special roughing up last October, when he and five others were kidnapped by Israel. At that time, Anthony and Penny rolled over and went back to sleep in their respective beds on the expensive silk sheets afforded those in top ministerial positions, even when they’ve got a running track record of ignoring citizens being kidnapped and beaten.

Those not beaten around by Israeli military guards on the prison ship were threatened with being shot or brutalised if they did not cooperate. And IDF officers further enjoyed themselves by forcing all of the foreign nationals being held hostage nearby Greece to sit in stress positions, or in positions that cause extreme physical pain and mental anguish, for long periods.

DFAT states that it has warned Australians not to participate in flotillas attempting to break the 2007 Israeli imposed blockade on the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip, because it could be dangerous. Yet, it did not underscore that if they did come to strife, the government would not raise issue with any crime committed against them by the Israeli state, even if done without justification.

Last week’s flotilla was the fourth to attempt to break the blockade of Gaza since mid-2025. The heightened urgency around these missions, as well as security risks, are due to Israel continuing to perpetrate a 31-month-old genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. The first flotilla in 2010 was boarded by IDF soldiers, who shot dead nine foreign nationals, with a tenth dying later in a coma.

Australian citizenship is losing meaning

The Australian government was long critiqued for its lack of action on attempting to see WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released from London’s Belmarsh prison where he was remanded for five years beginning in 2019. His supporters called on ministers to push for his release. Yet, in his case, there were UK extradition hearings and a US indictment, which provided a modicum of legitimacy.

During the paranoid climate post-9/11, the US Bush administration took Australian citizen David Hicks into custody in late 2001, over his having visited an al-Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. He was held at Guantanamo Bay without charge for years, until he was convicted of providing material support for terrorism in 2007, which was a charge created the year prior, and he was then repatriated.

The Howard government received heavy criticism for stranding an Australian citizen in the grips of the US military prison system for no real apparent crime for years on end.

The Hicks and Assange cases are similar in that it appears the long-term remanding of each man was the punishment, and further similarities include actual criminal charges, as well as Australian government compliance.

This lack of prioritising the plight of Australians overseas detained in questionable circumstances serves to weaken the relationship that the state is supposed to maintain with its citizens. And the current questioning of repatriation from the Albanese government in regard to the ISIS brides, which is continuing to play out, further undermines the worth, value and strength of Australian citizenship.

Yet, the pattern that Albanese and Wong have set in regard to showing no concern when Israel kidnaps around 180 foreign nationals, including six Australians, over the commission of no crimes marks the worst example of the dissolution of the meaning of citizenship in this country, with the easy comparison to make being, how would ministers react to China kidnapping Australians at sea?

As for law-abiding Middle Australians who consider the government ought not to have bothered about these “ratbag activists”, who were attempting to “interfere in situations across the other side of the world that don’t involve us”, the point they appear to be missing is that the increasing undermining of what it means to be an Australian citizen affects all Australian citizens.

This lack of any attention or concern being shown to innocent Australians being beaten and threatened by the military of a country allied to this nation, is what all citizens can likely expect when finding themselves illegitimately detained and mistreated overseas and seeking assistance to return home.