Julie Webb-Pullman, the mother of Dr Bianca Webb-Pullman who is being held by Israeli authorities for participating in the legal humanitarian Sumad Flotilla mission says her daughter’s medication was seized by Israeli forces and thrown away in front of her. Webb-Pullman says DFAT have told her that Israel is unable to provide her daughter with her medication (but not much else).

She told the ABC:

It’s been pretty patchy. I have had to make all of the efforts, except for the day on which they did a consular visit, and finally, that’s the only time that they ever did actually contact me. Which was on Saturday. But every other contact has been at my initiation. They do not give updates. I have to ring them every morning. I rang them at 3:30am yesterday morning. They are not very good at all.

As to when Webb-Pullman’s daughter and the other Australians being held by Israel in one of its most notorious prisons may be released, she told the ABC:

I called them just before I came in today. And they said that they are in negotiations at the moment. That they expect and they are hoping that they will be released to Jordan, but they’re negotiating with Jordanian authorities. So that’s what they are expecting is that they will be bussed to Jordan and then flown back.

…we [the families of the detained Australians] have a Whatsapp group that was set up only about a day ago. So it is a very new group. So it’s been only very brief time that we have been in touch. And the other families are worried, because the New Zealanders have all been announced to being released tomorrow – well, today our time. But tomorrow their time, kind of. But they’ve been announced that they are being released. Whereas the Australians haven’t. So people are a bit annoyed that every other person seems to be getting their citizens out. Ireland, there’s US citizens, and many other citizens have been released, but no Australians.

Julie Webb-Pullman said her daughter felt it her duty to try and break Israel’s illegal blockade in Gaza, which is denying citizens of the basics of life:

I was very worried. I was very worried for her on her own account, but also because I worked as a war crimes can investigator in Gaza, and the work that my teams did was instrumental on getting the full investigation into the Palestine Situation opened by the International Criminal Court. And also, we managed to provide a lot of evidence that saw the arrest warrants be issued for Netanyahu and Gallant and the others. So, I was concerned that if she was detained, that she would be treated badly because our name is unusual and it would be quite obvious that she is my daughter. So I felt that that would put her at risk. But she did not want to… that did not deter her.