Barcelona: Brazilian Survivor of Israeli Torture Joins 2026 Gaza Flotilla, Warns Trump & Netanyahu
April 14, 2026
Thiago Ávila, Brazilian Humanitarian and Climate Activist, has returned to the front lines of the maritime struggle for Gaza.
After surviving kidnapping, solitary confinement, and a hunger strike in an Israeli prison last year following the interception of the Madleen, Ávila is back, this time as a leader of the 2026 Global Sumud Flotilla.
Departing from the port of Barcelona with an initial fleet of 39 boats, aiming for over 100, Ávila carries enough aid for every primary school in Gaza.
Despite the so-called ceasefire of October 2025, over 700 Palestinians have been killed in the months since, and the blockade remains a death sentence.
“Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, they are right to fear the people because we will make them accountable for their crimes,” Ávila declared before setting sail. Backed by his wife and fellow organizer, Lara, he refuses to let the racist and supremacist ideology of Zionism dictate the future of his child or the children of Palestine.
From the Dahiyeh doctrine in Lebanon to the genocide in Gaza, Ávila warns that these systems are being tested on Palestinians to be used on the world. The Global Sumud Flotilla isn’t just bringing food, it’s bringing a global uprising against U.S. imperialism and the military-industrial complex.
Watch and share my exclusive interview with him.
#GlobalSumudFlotilla #ThiagoAvila #GazaUnderSiege #wavesofsumud #fyp
English Script:
Daizy: I am very excited to be on the port of Barcelona with Thiago, an incredible hero who last year was on the Madeleine with the great Greta Thunberg. And you went under an incredible, oppression, suppression attack. You took the boat into Gaza, you almost made it, and the Israelis stopped you, incarcerated you, solitary confinement, hunger strike. Everything that you did, you came out alive, and now you’re getting on a boat again to do it again. Can you tell the world what makes you have the courage again to get on the boat and try and do this a second time?
Thiago: We are merely little ants in the historical battle of our generation. Myself, all the other public figures, all the boat specialists, all the captains of the crew, all the organizers, all the people that have been here preparing the food, preparing the sound. They’re all part of the same struggle. Everybody who is on the flotilla, and who’s not on the flotilla, is at the demonstrations, is at the strikes. They are at the boycott campaigns. They are disrupting the arm factories. We’re all together with the same goal. So whenever we do this, we see the power, the people power. We see that we should not be afraid of them, that they should be afraid of us. Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, they are right to fear the people because we will make them accountable for their crimes. We will never stop mobilizing until this horrific Zionist system of colonization and the horrific system of domination represented by U.S. imperialism and the horrific industrial military complex that profit from war is over. We never stop mobilizing, so we really don’t fear them. We understand that what we are doing here is the most important task that we could be doing. Life is confusing and it’s challenging because this system was not made for us. So everybody face a lot of hardships and a lot of sacrifice to be doing this and mobilizing for this. But the sacrifice is nothing compared to the sacrifice the Palestinian people have to make every single day, to the risk that they’ve been facing every single day for eight decades of genocide and ethnic cleansing, from an apartheid colonial state, and from this racist and supremacist ideology called Zionism. This needs to end. And that’s why we’re sailing.
Daizy: You’re right, but you have a child too and a family. How do they feel?
Thiago: Everybody here has a family.
Daizy: But is your wife with you? Is your family behind you?
Thiago: I am very proud to say that me and my wife, we’re both organizers, we met in the struggles. We met building ecological homes, rebuilding biomes with agroforestry systems, facing oppression in Brazil and Latin America and many other countries. So we decided to do this for life. And we have a baby, and we take care of our baby will all our love, with all of our heart. And there’s nothing more dangerous for our two year old baby than to live in a world that allows genocide. The Palestinian fathers and mothers, they love their children as much as we love ours. They will give anything to relieve their children from pain. They would transfer that pain from themselves, just like we do. They would stay up all night to do every single need that their babies have, and they do not deserve to have to hold their children to be amputated without anesthesia, to have to see their home crumbling into thousand pound bombs that fall over their homes. They have the same interest that we do and it could be us, and eventually will be us if we don’t stop this system.
Daizy: It’s true. And what do you say, though, to people who are happy to still go on their life and go to cafes and go to the movies and go to restaurants and just stay, they’re aware of this. But they don’t do anything. They don’t take action. How do we get those people to wake up and take some action?
Thiago: These people are victims of the system that will live, the system of domination that we live, they maintain its hegemony. According to an amazing Italian that lived over 100 years ago called Antonio Gramsci. They live through this system and the system dominates them over it by two means. One is coercion, the military force, the wars, the military coups. There’s this constant surveillance, the repression, the criminalization and all these other things. The other method is through manufacturing consent, controlling the ideological systems, controlling the educational system, controlling the media, controlling the flow of information through censorship and so many other things in a way that either the person is defeated and imposed by force, or is convinced by many other means. It’s our duty to make sure that people access the information. Not only that violations are happening, because this is easier for people to see when Palestinians have been broadcasting their genocide for two years and a half, but not only to see the violation, but you know that you have a duty, a responsibility and the utmost interest to do something right now, because now it’s Palestine, but then it’s Congo, it’s Sudan, then it’s Iran and Yemen.
Daizy: And Lebanon.
Thiago: Lebanon.Venezuela.
Daizy: It’s happening, yeah everywhere.
Thiago: They’re testing the systems against Palestinians, but they are also testing Lebanon. When they bombed Gaza, they called their military doctrine, they called it the Dahye doctrine because they tried that in Dahye in Lebanon. So we need to make sure that they’re not leaving with impunity. We need to make sure that this problem stops. So we need to make sure that these people that somehow are either oppressed and forced to be in the system, are convinced of the system that they are invited to the most important task of our generation. They are part of this as well. And I know that in a planet of 8 billion people, the vast majority already know that this genocide is happening and already know that it is wrong. So now we need the next step. Not only know that is wrong, but take action.
Daizy: That’s right. Thank you very much. God bless your journey and everyone that’s on this journey. I know there are…I don’t know how many boats. You know how many boats are taking this journey this time?
Thiago: Yes, only from Barcelona. We are departing with 39 boats.
Daizy: Okay.
We aim to have over 70, maybe getting to 100 boats this time. Thousands of people, medical boats, computer boats. We are bringing so much aid. We’re bringing aid enough to the whole primary swing in Gaza. We will never ever stop.
Daizy: They desperately need it. God bless you and we’ll be watching the journey and following your journey and broadcasting it to everyone around the world. Thank you very much.
Thiago: Thank you so much.
Daizy: Thank you. Cheers. Stay on the journey with us.
Thiago: Yes.
Daizy: God bless you honestly.
