Greta Thunberg claims Israeli hostage is a Palestinian jailed by Israel

Swedish climate change activist detained in anti-Israel flotilla under fire after she claimed that an emaciated Israeli hostage held by Hamas is a “Palestinian prisoner.”

By World Israel News Staff

Climate change activist Greta Thunberg came under fire this week after she shared a social media post that misrepresented an emaciated Israeli hostage held in Gaza as a Palestinian Arab detained by Israel.

On Monday, Yasemin Acar, a 37-year-old German national and member of the steering committee for the Global Sumud Flotilla – a group responsible for organizing attempts to run Israel’s security blockade of Gaza – uploaded a post to her Instagram account accusing Israel of taking flotilla activists “hostage” and mistreating Arab security prisoners.

“The world is rightly horrified by what the Sumud Flotilla hostages are enduring,” Acar wrote. “But we must speak an uncomfortable truth: What they are living through is exactly…what over 11,000 Palestinian hostages and prisoners have been forced to endure for years, even decades.”

The post came after allegations by Thunberg and other flotilla activists detained by Israel this week of mistreatment, including being held in facilities infested with bedbugs.

Thunberg and other Global Sumud Flotilla activists shared the post shortly after Acar uploaded it.

One slide in the post included photographs purportedly proving Acar’s claims, including an image of an emaciated, shirtless man held in confinement.

“The suffering of Palestinian prisoners is not a matter of opinion – it is a fact of systematic cruelty and dehumanization,” Acar wrote above the photographs. “Humanity cannot be selective. Justice cannot have borders.”

However, the emaciated man featured in the slide was quickly identified by social media users as Evyatar David – an Israeli man held hostage by Hamas terrorists in Gaza.

Yeela David, Evyatar’s sister, excoriated Acar and Thunberg for using her brother’s photograph.

“You should make a research [sic] before you post things you don’t understand about,” Yeela wrote. “In the 6th slide you put a photo of an ISRAELI HOSTAGE who hamas starved on purpose. This is Evyatar David.”

“Every minute you are not deleting the post you are becoming a bigger joke. Embarrassing,” she added.

Following a backlash on social media, Acar removed the slide but left the remainder of the post intact.

An additional slide, which was not removed, defended convicted terrorist Ahmad Manasra, one of two Jerusalem Arabs who stabbed two Israelis during an attack in the Pisgat Ze’ev neighborhood in 2015.

Manasra, who was 13 at the time, joined his cousin in carrying out the attack, which wounded two Israelis, including a 13-year-old boy critically.

In the post, however, no mention is made of the nearly fatal attack, with Manasra referred to simply as a “boy in pain.”

“Ahmad Manasra was 13 years old when he was arrested in October 2015 in occupied East Jerusalem. In the video, Ahmad Manasra sits visibly terrified and disoriented while Israeli police surround him – shouting, accusing, and demanding answers.

“He’s just a child, confused and scared, facing adults who treat him like an enemy instead of a boy in pain.”