(Adnkronos) – Italy’s government has asked for European Union foreign ministers to consider sanctions against Israel’s police minister Itavar Ben-Gvir after he posted a video to social media on Wednesday showing him taunting and humiliating detained Gaza aid flotilla activists – who included 29 Italians – after their boats were intercepted in international waters.
“On behalf of the Italian government, I have just made a formal request to the High Representative @kajakallas to include in the EU foreign ministers’ discussion the adoption of sanctions against the Israeli national security minister Ben-Gvir,” foreign minister Antonio Tajani wrote on X, referring to EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas.
“This is for the unacceptable acts committed against the (Global Sumud) Flotilla, seizing the activists in international waters and subjecting them to harassment and humiliation, in violation of the most basic human rights,” Tajani wrote.
An informal EU foreign ministers meeting is taking place on 27-28 May in Lemesos, Cyprus, which holds the rotating EU Council presidency. The meeting is being chaired by Kallas and Cyprus’s foreign minister Constantinos Kombos.
Ben-Gvir’s video shows him walking around a tent where the activists are being held, believed to at the port of Ashdod, wearing the traditional kippah and a black shirt, waving the Israeli flag. “Welcome to Israel, we are the masters of the house,” and “The people of Israel live,” the minister tells Flotilla activists, who seen are blindfolded and have been forced to kneel bending forwards with their hands zip-tied behind their backs.
Israel’s premier Benjamin Netanyahu and foreign minister Gideon Saar criticised Ben-Gvir and US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, said he had“betrayed the dignity of his nation.”
The detention and mocking of the activists by Ben-Gvir sparked an international outcry with Italy, France, Canada, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands summoning their top Israeli diplomats in their countries.
