Italy investigating Ben Gvir for alleged torture, kidnapping over Gaza flotilla video

Italian prosecutors have put Israel’s far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir under investigation over the treatment of Gaza flotilla activists seen in a video he published last month, a judicial source said Monday.

The video, which showed him taunting and humiliating dozens of bound and kneeling activists that Israel had detained after intercepting the flotilla at sea, sparked immediate international outcry, as well as condemnations from Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar.

According to Italy’s ANSA news agency, prosecutors are investigating allegations including torture and kidnapping of the activists, including several Italian nationals.

The investigation has been underway for “several weeks,” ANSA reported.

Reacting to the reported investigation, Ben Gvir was dismissive, saying: “Israel isn’t a punching bag for a gang of lying terror supporters who invent libels and lies against our fighters.”

“I am undeterred by this sort of investigation and will continue to stand proudly with our fighters,” he said.

“The land of the boot has become the land of the flip-flop,” he wrote on X — a reference to the geographical shape of Italy.

Responding to Ben Gvir’s comments on Tuesday, Italian Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Antonio Tajani told a Senate hearing they were “unacceptable words… unworthy of a minister,” which demonstrate “the man’s political and moral standing.”

“I have no words to comment on what he said about Italy yesterday, after learning that he was under investigation by the public prosecutor’s office,” Tajani said.

Tajani said Rome “will continue to push” for the European Union to sanction Ben Gvir, adding that “many countries” were in favor of doing so.

Italy was initially one of Israel’s staunchest allies in Europe after Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s right-wing government took over in 2022, but it has steadily shifted away from Israel in recent years, taking a harder line against Israel’s actions in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, and approving European Union sanctions on violent Israeli settlers.

“It is not acceptable that these activists, many of whom are Italian citizens, are subjected to treatment that violates human dignity,” Meloni wrote on X less than two hours after Ben Gvir’s original post. “Italy demands an apology.”

The Italian decision followed a similar move last week from France, which said it opened an investigation into an alleged “war crime” as well as “torture” over Israel’s treatment of French citizens who took part in the flotilla.

The probe was opened at the government’s request, the national counterterrorism prosecutor’s office (PNAT) said, after activists accused Israeli authorities of mistreatment during their detention last month.

Organizers claimed that several deported flotilla activists were hospitalized with injuries sustained in Israeli custody and that at least 15 of them reported sexual assaults, including rape.

The Israel Prison Service has denied the flotilla activists’ claims of abuse, saying all of those detained were held “in accordance with the law, with full regard for their basic rights,” and received necessary and professional medical care.

Asked to respond to the claims of physical and psychological violence, sexual harassment, assault and rape, the IPS has said the accusations were “entirely without factual basis.”

Israel detained more than 430 activists from countries around the world after intercepting them in international waters beginning on May 18 as they made the latest in a string of attempts to break Israel’s naval blockade of Gaza.

Israel has dismissed the flotilla as “a PR stunt at the service of Hamas.”

Organizers said they aimed to break Israel’s blockade by delivering humanitarian assistance, something aid bodies say is still in short supply, despite a US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in place since October 2025 that includes guarantees of increased aid. Israel has said that the flotillas generally carry only symbolic quantities of aid, and that they refuse to hand it over for overland transfer into Gaza.