EU anti-migrant policy has incentivised the Benghazi government’s criminal action. Inaction is complicity: our governments must act now.
We denounce the arbitrary interception and detention of ten members of the Global Sumud Maghreb land convoy. On May 24, a diplomatic and humanitarian delegation from this international caravan was unlawfully detained by military forces under the command of the Libyan National Army (LNA) near the “5+5” security checkpoint in Sirte, eastern Libya. The targeted delegation was moving peacefully towards Benghazi as part of a wider civil effort to negotiate secure transit through North Africa to deliver crucial medical aid, food, and relief to the population of the Gaza Strip, currently enduring an ongoing siege and humanitarian catastrophe.
The detention of these ten humanitarian volunteer activists represents a severe breach of international legal standards protecting civil relief missions and an unacceptable alignment with regional policies that actively obstruct essential aid from reaching millions of civilians in desperate need. Similarly, the continued detention of over 9000 hostages held prisoners in Israeli jails under shocking conditions, subjected to torture and systemic sexual violence is also unconsciounable and illegal. We demand their release.
The ten detained international activists are from Argentina, Spain, Italy, United States, Poland, Portugal, Uruguay, and Tunisia. They were performing vital documentation and health support duties. Following their arbitrary arrest, these ten individuals were forcibly transferred to a detention site in Benghazi under the jurisdiction of Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar’s administration, with local authorities refusing to provide formal legal justifications or establish a transparent timeline for their immediate release.
This unlawful detention constitutes a targeted act of state-sponsored harassment against independent journalists, health workers, and peace advocates whose only objective is to exercise civil solidarity across international borders.
We hold the eastern Libyan authorities directly and fully responsible for the physical and psychological integrity of the international convoy members who remain held in isolation. Reports emerging from concurrent civilian deployments within the wider Global Sumud Flotilla campaign—including the maritime sector where participants experienced physical aggression, tasering, and inhumane conditions before being deported—demonstrate a dangerous and systematic regional pattern of violence aimed at crushing civilian efforts to challenge the siege of Gaza.
We demand that the detaining forces in Benghazi respect the absolute rights of these ten detainees, grant them immediate access to international legal counsel, and allow direct consular communication with their respective diplomatic missions.
This obstruction of the Global Sumud land convoy does not occur in a vacuum; it is directly linked to the structural mechanics of regional border externalization. Like its Tripoli-based rival and the Tunisian administration under Kais Saied, the Benghazi government actively leverages border enforcement to align with the European Union’s restrictive anti-migration policies. By intercepting international civil actors, the Haftar administration seeks to demonstrate its operational utility to the EU in managing regional transit, aiming to secure financial payoffs or formalize informal agreements already operating with frontline states such as Italy and Malta. The weaponization of this humanitarian convoy serves as a tool for political positioning; consequently, the EU and its Mediterranean member states bear direct culpability for creating the financial incentives and political carrots that induce regional militias to criminalize international solidarity.
By blocking the safe passage of these activists and their humanitarian cargo, the eastern Libyan forces are effectively participating in the external enforcement of the blockade against the Palestinian people. The criminalization of human rights defenders and international journalists trying to report on and alleviate a genocidal crisis is a mechanism utilized to shield state violence and maintain illegal blockades through fear and forced disappearances.
Therefore, Global Jews for Palestine demands the immediate, unconditional liberation of all ten members of the Global Sumud Maghreb land convoy currently held in Libya. We urge the international community, global labor unions, human rights networks, and the governments of Argentina, Spain, Italy, and all involved nations to escalate diplomatic interventions and exert maximum pressure on the Benghazi administration to secure their freedom. We likewise condemn the financial rewards (by the EU or member states) which have incentivised the Benghazi government to detain the activists.
True justice and global solidarity demand that we dismantle the architecture of blockades and detentions, ensuring that humanitarian solidarity can flow freely and without criminalization wherever human rights are systematically violated.