A woman held on a floating prison in the Middle East was beaten, tortured and humiliated - by being forced to wear cow "sliders" and mooed at. Katy Davidson, 49, said she has been left totally traumatised after her nightmare ordeal when she was detained during a humanitarian mission.
She was also shot at, threatened with being gassed in her cells and endured a "cruel and slow" torture at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) - and made to call her captors "King". Katy was one of 428 people involved in the Global Sumud Flotilla (GSF), attempting to break Israel's maritime blockade of Gaza to deliver food and medical aid.
Ordeal on the 'floating prison'
Now back home in Newquay, Cornwall, she recalled her hands being handcuffed so tightly she nearly passed out, and said she has been left struggling to sleep with frequent nightmares and flashbacks after being treated like a "prisoner of war". She said: "We were threatened with being gassed in our cells and threatened to be shot with tasers if we made any noise. My hands were handcuffed so tight I was in agony, and then one of the prison guards I asked to help me, actually tightened them even more, laughing and telling me they didn't care about my human rights. It was a cruel and slow torture."
"They did everything they could to humiliate us, even giving us sliders with cattle emblems on them and mooing at us as they made us march around the yard doubled over with cameras filming it all. The only way to describe it was hell - but the Arabic writing scratched into the cell walls gave us an insight into a darker hell than we'll ever know."
Interception and detention
Katy says she set sail from Sicily with the GSF fleet and Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise on April 25, but four days later the IDF intercepted the boat in international waters and forcibly removed the crew at gunpoint. She described drones and military surveillance before commandos allegedly threatened to shoot unless they moved to the front of the boat.
She said: "We were innocent civilians carrying humanitarian aid. The sheer horror, helplessness and injustice we felt was truly indescribable. But this is what the people of Palestine are facing every second." Katy said her aid boat was left to sink, her crew threw their phones into the sea to protect their families, and she was taken to a “floating prison” of razor-wired shipping containers where she witnessed “brutal torture and abuse”.
Continued abuse and escape
The seafood and events professional from Newquay, Cornwall, who also participated in GSF in 2025, said: "On the prison ship, they wanted us exposed and took every bit of comfort they could: treating us like cattle by zip tying our wrists, giving us numbers, and threatening us with deprivation, violence, tasers, stun grenades and rubber bullets. And we are international citizens - just think what they do to the thousands of Palestinians held without charge in their prisons."
Katy further recalled: "At night they used spotlights to disturb us and flooded the deck to soak us as we tried to sleep. I wanted to shine a mirror back in their faces and asked them, 'if I was a prisoner I could have a phone call - if not, then I'm a hostage?'"
Detainees were eventually dragged off a prison ship in Crete. Katy claimed they were held on buses until escaping near Heraklion Airport, where she says consulates offered little help beyond lending a phone despite the group having no food, money or clothes and some needing medical aid.
Aftermath and criticism
The activists were flown from Heraklion to Istanbul by Turkish authorities, welcomed by supporters and pushed straight into a press conference where Katy criticised Keir Starmer over a lack of backing. She then joined another Gaza-bound flotilla from Turkey on May 14 but says they were intercepted again on May 20 off Cyprus: “We made a Mayday call but no one came.”
Activists among the 428 people abducted say they were beaten, tasered and sexually assaulted whilst in Israeli detention.
