Continuing her press conference, Greta Thunberg insisted that the story is not the imprisonment of the activists aboard the Global Sumud Flotilla, but the genocide being carried out in the Gaza Strip.

“The Global Sumud Flotilla was the biggest-ever attempt to break Israel’s illegal and inhumane siege by sea,” the Swedish activist said. “It is a story of global, international solidarity, of people stepping up when our governments fail to do so and people are saying ‘my leaders … who are supposed to represent me continue to fuel a genocide … they do not represent me’.

“This (the flotilla) is a last resort; that this mission had to exist is a shame,” she added.

Thunberg said she could “talk for a very, very long time” about her imprisonment and abuse at the hands of Israeli jailers but insisted that it was not the story.

She said the story was “Israel … continuing to worsen and escalate their genocide and mass destruction with genocidal intent; attempting to erase an entire population in front of our very eyes.”