Israelis released from detention after joining Gaza aid flotilla

Israel has released two Israeli citizens who were detained for participating in an international flotilla that sought to deliver aid to Gaza and break the 18-year siege.

The Israel-based legal rights group Adalah confirmed on Sunday that Zohar Regev and Huwaida Arraf – both dual nationals - had left the country for Jordan.

The two were among dozens of passengers aboard The Conscience, one of nine ships intercepted by Israeli naval forces earlier this week in international waters, about 120 nautical miles off Gaza's coast.

The flotilla, carrying aid and 150 campaigners from more than 40 countries, aimed to draw attention to what organisers called Israel's "collective punishment" of Gaza's population.

Huwaida Arraf is an American-Israeli lawyer and activist who co-founded the International Solidarity Movement. Zohar Chamberlain Regev was an Israeli-born Jew who later converted to Islam.

Jordan's foreign ministry said on Sunday that 45 activists arrived in the country by the King Hussein crossing between the occupied West Bank and Jordan.

Nationals of Tunisia, Spain, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Finland, the US, and Canada were among those who left the country, it said.

Adalah, which has represented hundreds of flotilla activists in recent weeks, said Regev and Arraf's release meant that all participants have now been released from Israeli detention.

More than 460 people participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla were detained by Israeli forces earlier this month, all of whom have now been deported from the country.

The organisation received dozens of testimonies from participants detailing violent and degrading treatment by Israeli forces.

Detainees have alleged that Israeli forces subjected them to verbal and physical assault and held them in harsh conditions at Ketziot and other detention facilities.

Prison guards have been accused of withholding food and water, preventing them from speaking to lawyers, and denying them access to medical care.

Adalah said that Israel's interception of the flotilla in international waters and abduction of the crew members constituted a grave violation of international law.