Adalah Alert. May 4

May 4, 2026 Pam Rogers

Urgent Media Alert: Adalah lawyers visit detained GSF activists Thiago and Saif; reports of death threats and threats of prolonged imprisonment. Both activists have entered their sixth day of hunger strike and are detained in isolation.

4 May 2026

Following a visit just concluded at the Shikma detention facility by Adalah Attorneys Hadeel Abu Salih and Lubna Tuma, Adalah is sounding the alarm over the psychological abuse and ill-treatment of Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF) activists Thiago Ávila and Saif Abu Keshek. Both activists have entered their sixth day of a hunger strike (drinking water only) in protest of their unlawful abduction by the Israeli navy in international waters while engaging in a humanitarian mission to challenge the unlawful blockade on Gaza.

Thiago Ávila reported being subjected to repeated interrogations lasting up to eight hours. Interrogators have explicitly threatened him, stating he would either be “killed” or “spend 100 years in jail.” Both activists are being held in total isolation. Their cells are kept under constant high-intensity lighting 24 hours a day, a known Israeli Prison Service (IPS) practice specifically designed to induce sleep deprivation and sensory disorientation. Additionally, Thiago reported being held in extremely cold temperatures. They are kept blindfolded at all times whenever they are moved outside their cells, including during medical examinations. Adalah emphasizes that blindfolding a patient during a doctor’s visit is a gross violation of medical ethical standards.

Much of the interrogation has focused on the Global Sumud Flotilla , a peaceful humanitarian mission, which confirms that the detention is an attempt to criminalize humanitarian aid and solidarity.

Adalah lawyers are waiting to understand whether the state will file an extension-of-detention request tomorrow. Adalah continues to demand their immediate, unconditional release and an end to these illegal proceedings.

For latest updates, follow Adalah’s WhatsApp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Vb6ReXG8PgsLxkVY643j

HeART of Gaza

May 4, 2026 Pam Rogers

The traveling exhibition HeART OF GAZA features drawings created by Palestinian children in Gaza, aged 3 to 17 years, during the ongoing conflict. Created in cooperation with Féile Butler from Sligo, Ireland, it is based on a project founded by Mohammed Timraz, a Gaza-based art therapy researcher at the University of Parma and the owner of Grey Café in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, which was destroyed by Israeli bombing in 2024.

Timraz embarked on this project with a clear goal: to allow children in the Gaza Strip to express their feelings and communicate their experiences through drawing and art amid the catastrophic humanitarian conditions that have been imposed by the Zionist entity. With these activities, he intended to help transform pain and suffering into a humanitarian art space that fosters creativity and encourages the free expression of trauma and complex emotions through an authentic visual language. Since 2024, the project has organized art workshops for children in the so-called Artists’ Tent in the city of Deir al-Balah and in other art spaces located in various areas of the Gaza Strip. Over time, it expanded to include more than 17 art spaces, and it has involved over 2,000 children who find in art a way to express what they sometimes cannot express with words.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE & CONSIDER SUBSCRIBING