Anti-genocide protests are being met with increasing state violence in the aftermath of Israel’s illegal abduction of activists attempting to deliver aid to break the siege of Gaza.

On Saturday, activists were blocked by a Garda cordon from securing access to Dublin Port.

Pepper spray and batons were used without verbal warning, and thuggish attacks left several protestors with injuries, including one with a broken wrist.

Several protesters were arrested violently and dragged by Gardaí into a transport van.

The Irish Council for Civil Liberties condemned the Garda actions, and said their observers at the protest were also affected.

“Any use of force by gardaí must be proportionate and necessary,” they said.

The focus of the protests has been the failure of the Dublin government to end its economic and logistical complicity in the genocide and to break economic ties with Israel alongside similar moves by other EU states.

There were clashes in Derry after a pro-Palestine march there, when a young activist from the Republican Socialist Youth Movement (RSYM) was arrested for carrying a Palestinian resistance flag. A banner was also unfurled from the Derry Walls alleging collaboration between elements of the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli state.

The RSYM described the arrest as “a clear attempt to criminalise political expression”.

Events around Ireland have also expressed solidarity with activists on the aid flotillas who were abducted, abused and imprisoned by Israeli forces as they sought to relieve the siege of the Palestinian people there.

All fifteen Irish citizens taken captive by Israel after the interception of the Global Sumud Flotilla have now returned home.

They described how they suffered aggressive treatment and violence in Israeli custody, including being kicked when trying to sleep, and being kept in a notorious desert prison.

Speaking at the airport, poet Sarah Clancy from Clare described the flotilla’s interception as an illegal abduction and said that their treatment upon arrival at Ashdod Port had been staged for Israeli media.

The abductees were held under armed guard in the infamous Ktzi’ot Prison, deprived of clean water and mattresses.

“At one point, eight men armed with guns pinned us to the back wall of the cell because we wanted mattresses,” Ms Clancy said.

Comedian Tadhg Hickey said their treatment was the most “inhumane that he had ever seen in his life”.

He said: “For the crime of trying to get baby formula into a besieged population to try and feed starving babies, we were brought to effectively a terrorist prison camp, denied any access to lawyers, denied any access to doctors, to medical care.

“One of us, Paddy (Kelly), a 75-year-old man, was denied access to insulin.

“They never gave him his insulin over three or four days, knowing that easily he could die because of that.

“We were drinking toilet water for three or four days.”

Another of the group, republican activist Diarmuid Mac Dubhghlais, said they were treated as if they had “no rights”.

He said: “There were Israeli dogs barking and attacking Palestinian prisoners that were treated much, much worse than us.”

Turkish journalist Ersin Celik, one of those detained, also described how Israeli soldiers “dragged Greta Thunberg on the ground” and “forced her to kiss the Israeli flag”. He said she was “severely tortured before our eyes … made to crawl and humiliated”.

Five further Irish citizens including author Naoise Dolan and Independent TD Barry Heneghan were detained by Israel this week when their smaller flotilla of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip was intercepted.

They had been part of the Thousand Madleens flotilla, a group of nine boats that had been about 120 nautical miles from Gaza before it was intercepted.

Ms Clancy praised Irish pro-Palestinian demonstrators who blocked Dublin’s Port Tunnel last Thursday in solidarity with the flotilla.

“The Irish government can expect the ports to be blocked from now on, every time we can with whoever we can unless they act themselves to sanction Israel,” she said.

Niamh Mac Namara, coordinator with Global Movement to Gaza Éire, said the Irish government’s inaction regarding Israel’s war on Gaza “has directly led to this situation, ordinary Irish citizens forced to risk their lives because leaders refused to act”.

“What happened was completely illegal under international law and should never have been allowed.

“If Ireland had imposed sanctions on the genocidal state of Israel and upheld human rights, this mission would never have been necessary. We demand immediate political action to protect those still sailing to Gaza and to end our complicity in this genocide.”