Greek coast guard threw 15 Palestinians into a life raft and left them helplessly drifting at sea.
In recent weeks, more and more Palestinians have been left drifting in life rafts in the Aegean Sea by the Greek coast guard: a cruel and inhumane way to treat people seeking protection in Europe.
These men, women and children are some of the most vulnerable people on Earth, with international news broadcasts reporting continuously on attacks against them from one of the world's most advanced militaries, and the international court having accepted that what is being waged against them may not be a war, or even ethnic cleansing, but an all-out genocide.
Not are the persecution and attacks on Gazan people showing any signs of stopping. On the evening of 12 February, the Israeli government launched an attack on Rafah, the city to which it had previously demanded people must flee if they wished not to be bombed in their homes, killing at least 67 men, women and children (many reports put that figure at far more than 100 people killed) and maiming many, many more.
Even if the Israeli government were not now attacking Rafah, leaving Gazan people with literally no place in Gaza left to run, conditions in the city were already terrible.
An estimated 1.4m people are now crammed into the 151km² city, meaning its population had expanded in the last three months to seven times that of the 200,000 people who had been there on 7 October 2023.
And this latest episode carried out by the Greek coastguard merely confirms a pattern of cruelty and violence, even against the most vulnerable people trying to find protection in Europe.
A group of 20 people, 15 Palestinians and five Syrians, was heading towards the Greek island of Chios Friday when they were stopped by a vessel from the Greek coast guard, deep inside Greek territorial waters.
Masked men with guns ordered the boat to stop, took the 20 people onto the coast guard vessel, and stripped them of all their belongings, before they were forced into a small life raft, and left helplessly drifting in the dark.
Close to 30.000 Palestinian civilians have been slaughtered by Israeli forces in Gaza, more than 12.000 of them children. More than 12.000 children killed in a war the Israeli government claims is a war against terrorists. How can anyone in their right mind support this?
Greek authorities seem to be not only in support of Israel, but also eager to send those that have managed to escape the slaughter, including children, back, by any means possible.
And the EU, even as it votes to censure the Greek government for its effective dismantling of the rule of law and human rights within Greece, appears to continue to back the same government's attacks on vulnerable men, women and children exercising their legal right to flee war and terror, and seek safe places to live.
The carrying out and backing of pushbacks is immoral and illegal in all cases. But committing and supporting the violent violation of international and European law by an EU member state, against people fleeing what may be a televised genocide is an unconscionable crime committed by the EU and Greek government alike.
#StopBorderCrimes