Alyssa McMurtry
13 October 2025•Update: 13 October 2025
OVIEDO, Spain
The remaining six Spanish citizens, captured by Israel after joining humanitarian aid flotillas to break the Gaza blockade, returned home Monday, including one woman who faced charges for assaulting a prison guard.
Reyes Rigo, who was part of the first Global Sumud mission, was detained by Israeli forces on Oct. 1 and later accused of biting a guard at Israel’s Ketziot Prison.
Under a deal with Israeli prosecutors, she pleaded guilty to assault and paid a fine of about €2,650 ($2,870).
During a court hearing, Rigo claimed that she was mistreated while in custody, and said the incident occurred when she tried to protect a fellow activist who was being attacked by a guard.
At the airport, she said her ordeal was “nothing compared to our Palestinian brothers and sisters—there, there are women, children, and men in the prisons of a genocidal state.”
She urged people to join a general strike on Oct. 15 to denounce Israel’s actions and called on the Spanish government “to denounce this abduction and demand accountability” before the International Court of Justice.
The other five activists who arrived alongside Rigo were captured on Oct. 8 while taking part in the Thousand Madleens to Gaza flotilla.
Supporters at the airport chanted slogans such as “Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people” and “Free Palestine.”
Israel captured more than 50 Spanish nationals who tried to carry aid to Palestine in the flotilla missions in recent weeks. They have now all been released.
Israel, as the occupying power, has previously attacked several Gaza-bound ships, seized their cargo, and deported activists on board.
It has maintained a blockade on Gaza, home to nearly 2.4 million people, for nearly 18 years and tightened the siege in March when it closed border crossings and blocked food and medicine deliveries, pushing the enclave into famine.
Since October 2023, Israeli attacks have killed more than 67,800 Palestinians in the enclave, most of them women and children, and rendered it uninhabitable. A ceasefire to end two years of Israeli bombardment on the enclave was set Thursday.
