IWU-FI Press
7 October 2025. Finally, on Tuesday, 7 October, the leader of Socialist Left (IS) in the FIT-U (Left Front-Unity) and the International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI), Argentinian Ezequiel Peressini, was deported and released in Jordan, a country bordering the imperialist enclave of Israel.
Peressini was one of dozens of internationalist crew members on the ship Sirius and the Global Sumud Flotilla, which had departed on 31 August from the port of Barcelona carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza to break the criminal Zionist blockade.
Peressini was part of the IWU-FI delegation, along with Juan Carlos Giordano, national deputy of Socialist Left, Argentina. Unfortunately, he had to leave the flotilla in Greece because of a medical emergency. Görkem Duru, leader of the Workers’ Democracy Party (IDP) of Turkey, who had been working for weeks from Tunisia, was also part of the IWU-FI delegation.
Israeli authorities held Ezequiel Peressini and hundreds of other members of the flotilla in the maximum-security prison of Ketziot, in the Negev desert, near the Israeli border with Egypt, some 180 kilometres south of Tel Aviv. It stands in a desolate place, a barren land far from almost everything in Israel, where clouds of sand rise with every step. The walls of this prison, which holds sinister memories for Palestinians, hide several barracks. Ezequiel and the hundreds of detainees in these appalling conditions maintained their dignity in the face of pressure and provocation from Zionism and its guards.
The great international pressure from mass mobilisations such as the general strike in Italy, among others, forced the genocidal state of Israel to release the over 400 fighters from the Flotilla. They released them in different batches.
Greta Thunberg, for example, arrived on 6 October at Athens airport in Greece after Israel deported her along with a group of 135 members of the Global Sumud Flotilla, who had detained them while sailing to the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid. ‘Let me be very clear,’ said the young Swede; ‘genocide is taking place,’ she told the crowd gathered at the airport in the Greek capital, referring to Israeli military action in Gaza. Trump calls Greta Thunberg a “troublemaker” and advises her to see a doctor to ‘control her anger’. The activist then replied, still with irony, that she was ‘kindly’ willing to receive any recommendations he might have for managing “anger management issues”. ‘Judging by your impressive track record,’ she continued, ‘you seem to suffer from them too.’ (El Pais, 7 October 2025).
Israel released Peressini, Argentinian Celeste Fierro (a member of the MST/LIS), and Argentinian Carlos Bertola (captain of one ship). They released them along with two Uruguayans, also members of the flotilla. Authorities took them from prison by bus to the Jordanian border, where they released them and handed them over to representatives of the Uruguayan consulate because Argentina does not have a consulate there.
Jordan warmly welcomed them and took them to a hospital for a preventive medical evaluation. The Jordanian hospital staff were very supportive and took souvenir photos of the Gaza Flotilla.
They are already preparing to return to Argentina. Ezequiel Peressini (IS-IWU-FI) and Celeste Fierro (MST-LIS) will do so on a flight arriving on Wednesday, 8 October, at 8:30 p.m. at Ezeiza Airport in Argentina.
Juan Carlos Giordano, the only national deputy from Argentina who was part of the flotilla (IS- FIT-U) said: “The global mobilisation got them released. It is a significant victory against genocidal Zionism, as thousands of us on land and sea redoubled our cry against genocide, famine and for a Free Palestine from the River to the Sea. We will welcome them as the brave fighters they are, of the greatest humanitarian cause to support Gaza.”
