Ramiro Giganti set sail for Gaza in April to challenge Israel’s blockade and deliver aid to Palestinians. A month later he returned with battered ribs, the result of what he alleges was torture at the hands of Israeli forces and silence from his home country, Argentina, which he accuses of looking the other way to maintain strategic ties.
Giganti, 49, is an Argentine journalist of Lebanese descent. He is a member of Tejiendo Solidaridad con Gaza (Weaving Solidarity with Gaza), a collective that has been raising funds for families in the Gaza Strip since October 2023.
Israel has imposed a strict land, sea and air blockade on Gaza since 2007, when Hamas gained control of the strip. Israel’s genocidal military campaign since October 2023 has turned the situation desperate, starving its war-torn population of badly needed food, medicine, and fuel.
Since the inaugural sail in 2025, the Global Sumud Flotilla has sought to break the siege and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza’s besieged population. Israel’s response has been to exert a mix of diplomatic pressure and brute force—its navy has intercepted ships, arrested activists, and has even attacked convoys with drone strikes. This current campaign is part of a long-standing maritime solidarity movement that has sailed with supplies to break the blockade. Only one such effort—a 2008 voyage organized by the Free Gaza Movement—successfully reached Gaza. The latest mission, joined by Giganti in April, brought together some 3,000 participants from 100 countries.
In Argentina, solidarity with Palestinians is on the rise, reflected in the country’s delegation to the flotilla and in recurring public demonstrations following each Israeli interception of aid vessels. Still, the movement there remains relatively small compared to those in much of the rest of Latin America. Organizing has also been complicated by President Javier Milei’s staunch support for Israel. His administration has sought to deepen strategic ties with the country in areas ranging from security cooperation to water management and natural resources.
Nevertheless, since 2025 prominent Argentine figures like legislators Celeste Fierro and Ezequiel Peressini have taken part in freedom flotillas and been detained en route. This has brought more visibility to the Palestinian cause, with solidarity demonstrations becoming larger and more frequent.
Setting Sail
After days of preparation, Giganti departed from the port of Barcelona on April 15 on a sailboat named Eilabun. Before he left, he said he signed a legal document authorizing the Global Flotilla to act on his behalf in case of an emergency.
The vessel was named in honor of a Maronite Christian village near the Lebanese border that was devastated by the 1948 nakba (Arabic for “catastrophe”), when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes, their villages razed, and the Israeli state was established.
“My great-grandparents came from a nearby area,” said Giganti.
The Eilabun carried backpacks, school and medical supplies, toys, diapers, rice, and letters written by children in Spain addressed to children in Gaza. The larger vessels carried generators, which the flotilla hoped would contribute to rebuilding part of the damaged infrastructure in the Strip.
That night, members of the Israel Defense Forces intercepted 22 flotilla vessels off the coast of Greece.
“It is a life experience marked by extreme contrasts, ranging from the happiest days of your life to the worst days of your life,” Giganti said.
Trouble started on April 29. “We saw huge lights passing by—they were Israeli patrol boats. We sped up and headed straight toward the Greek coast. It was still hard because, while we were escaping, they were kidnapping our comrades.”
That night, members of the Israel Defense Forces intercepted 22 flotilla vessels off the coast of Greece.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said 175 activists were detained during the operation, including six Argentines. The Eilabun and its crew managed to escape, but not for long.
On May 18, Israel captured the boat. “One day we were watching dolphins swimming alongside us, and an hour later we were being kidnapped,” Giganti recalled. He said the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) used electronic interference to block their ability to transmit mayday calls. When they tried, all they could hear was white noise.
“I knew they were coming for us when the internet was cut off. Twenty minutes later, we saw a boat approaching,” he said. “We threw our phones into the sea, followed the protocol, and stood with our hands raised while they pointed their weapons at us.”
By 9:00 am, IDF forces had taken control of Eilabun. The crew’s passports were confiscated and each of them was given a wristband with a number—Giganti’s was 71—before transferring them to a prison ship.
Tortured in Captivity
The arrested activists were partly stripped and put inside holding cells that were bitterly cold. A few tried to keep warm by wrapping themselves in plastic from packs of bottled water, Giganti recalled. When the soldiers fed the prisoners, by throwing bread and water at them, they also threw stun grenades. Giganti describes his time in Israeli custody as “torture.”
Luckily for Giganti, the convoy included doctors.
“Three or four people treated me, including a very kind doctor who spoke to me in English and made me a bandage with a kufiya. I had trouble breathing and couldn’t make certain movements. That woman, who treated me with enormous kindness, turned out to be Margaret Connolly. She became a pillar of support for the entire group,” he said.
Connolly, an Irish physician, prominent activist, and sister of Irish President Catherine Connolly, documented 35 fractures, five head injuries, and as many as 16 cases of sexual abuse. “The medics kept asking for painkillers, and they were never given anything,” Giganti added.
The events would later be documented in a complaint filed before the International Criminal Court by members of the flotilla.
The activists spent two nights imprisoned aboard the ship. On May 20, they docked at the port of Ashdod, in southern Israel. The activists were ordered to kneel behind a red line, facing the ground.
“My knees were starting to hurt, but we weren’t allowed to move. Meanwhile, they kept playing the Israeli national anthem over and over again. Hundreds of times. At one point, I looked to the side and saw an Australian camarade crying. And out of the corner of my eye I saw soldiers on a balcony taking selfies while an Israeli flag was being unfurled,” said Giganti.
He spent that night in a cell at Katzi’ot Prison, in the Negev Desert, Israel’s largest detention facility. Thousands of Palestinians are held there without charge or trial.
Abandoned by the Government
During his detention, a representative acting for the Global Sumud Flotilla in Argentina said they contacted the Foreign Ministry daily in Argentina, speaking on the phone and having virtual meetings. The Foreign Ministry always replied the same way: “Que estaban intentando comunicarse”, they were trying to get in touch, the representative explained. The Ministry never received anyone from the Flotilla in person. Ramiro had no opportunity to communicate with either the Argentine Foreign Ministry or the Argentine Embassy during his detention. The Foreign Ministry did not respond to requests for comment for this article.
After the night in Katzi’ot, Giganti and the other members of the Flotilla were placed on a Turkish Airlines flight to Istanbul, the final stop before they were returned to their home countries.
“‘We can say that we traveled through occupied Palestine in the most dignified way an activist can: handcuffed and inside a prison truck.'”
En route to the airport, the mood suddenly lifted. The 18 activists sang “The Internationale” in every language they knew: Spanish, German, Arabic, even Flemish.
“Omar, a Jordanian-Palestinian, said to me in English: ‘We are on my land. We are in Palestine.’ It was beautiful. We can say that we traveled through occupied Palestine in the most dignified way an activist can: handcuffed and inside a prison truck.”
At the airport in Tel Aviv, Giganti briefly met an Argentine diplomat. To date, it was his only interaction with an official from his country.
“A very well-dressed woman wearing an Argentine flag approached me and asked whether we had been treated well. I answered, ‘A lot of torture, and long live a free Palestine.’ The police officer immediately pulled me away. To me, she was there simply to record that we had been treated properly.”
Giganti says he’s “deeply ashamed” by his government’s lack of response, both during his arrest and when similar incidents happened to other Argentines.
Abandoned, Once Again
Earlier, in March, 10 members of the Global Sumud Land Caravan, a parallel initiative that sought to reach Gaza by land, were detained by authorities in eastern Libya upon entering the country.
Among them were the Argentine journalists María Paula Giménez and Lucas Ezequiel Aguilera, research directors at the news outlet NODAL. The Foreign Ministry did not reply when the families of Giménez and Aguilera reached out to them for support when they were detained. The Ministry also did not respond to multiple complaints.
Their release was announced a month later, by Argentine Secretary of Foreign Affairs Pablo Quirno. “The Argentine Foreign Ministry does not engage in politics or spectacle with Argentine citizens who need assistance abroad,” he said.
In a statement emphasizing the lack of state support, NODAL said that the journalists’ release was the result of pressure exerted by “their families; social, political, trade union, humanitarian and human rights organizations; and all those who demanded that they be found alive and released immediately.”
Giganti believes the Argentine government not only failed to support him and the other activists, but actively contributed to the harm they experienced. “Milei’s government is responsible for what happened to me, because of its explicit support for the state that did this to me,” Giganti said, referring to Israel. “And because the Foreign Ministry did absolutely nothing for us. And it wasn’t just us—they didn’t do anything for Paula and Lucas either.”
Shifting Tides?
In April of this year, while nearly 3,000 participants set out to break the blockade on Gaza, Milei took the stage at Mount Herzl during Israel’s 78th Independence Day ceremony to sing “Libre” (“Free”), by Nino Bravo, telling the crowd that Israel and Argentina were nations bound for life.
“Long live freedom, damn it! Am Yisrael Chai,” shouted the self-described most Zionist president in the world, using a Hebrew phrase meaning “The People of Israel Live.”
Despite this political climate, Giganti draws a line between the Argentine state and its people. And despite not breaking the blockade, he believes the flotilla was, in some ways, a success. It put Gaza back at the center of public debate in Argentina, with politicians speaking out against the activists’ treatment and calling on the government to take action.
On June 5, following the death of Indio Solari—an icon of Argentine rock and a symbol of its people—mourners spontaneously took to the streets; alongside signs bearing his face, Palestinian flags appeared in the crowd.
“The people rebel,” Giganti said.
Daniella “Ella” Fernández (La Habana, Cuba, 1995) is a journalist, photographer, and filmmaker based in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her work explores feminism, migration, environment, and social movements across Latin America and the Caribbean.
This article was produced in partnership with Egab.