The mother of two Sheffield, Mass. brothers who were detained by Israel while part of an aid flotilla sailing to Gaza is urging their safe return. 

Adnaan and Torleif Stumo, 32 and 26 years old, respectively, were taken into custody Oct. 1 when Israel intercepted  the Global Sumud Flotilla — a fleet of ships carrying hundreds of humanitarians from around the world en route to deliver aid to Gaza. Their mother, former candidate for Congress Nadia Milleron, is encouraging lawmakers to voice their dissent.

The flotilla aimed to break Israel’s blockade on Gaza, which has prevented  food, medicine and supplies from reaching the territory since March. Activists were sailing in international waters when the Israel Defense Forces, or IDF,  began boarding their vessels and detaining volunteers. Similar confrontations have resulted from past aid efforts, with the most infamous being the raid of the Mavi Marmara in 2010 and the most recent being the siege of the 2018 Just Future for Palestine Flotilla. 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

The Huntington News: How did your sons come to be a part of the U.S. Delegation of the Global Sumud Flotilla?

Milleron: My kids are maritime people. They had been tapped before to do this for a different flotilla. My husband and I said no. It’s not that they weren’t adults or couldn’t make their own decisions — we just already lost two children. One child to a defective Boeing plane — a new plane — and another child to cancer. So we said, not only do we not want you to risk your lives, we don’t think this is a really valuable way of spending your life, because the most important work that needs to be done is the education of the American taxpayers to know how their money is being spent. And they agreed with us at first and went to Capitol Hill and tried to educate lawmakers. One tried for a year, I think the other one did several months of lobbying . . . they didn’t make as much progress as they wanted to. Then they were tapped again as maritime people to do this. And they just agreed without our consent. First, Adnaan agreed and we said, “No, no, no, please don’t go,” and he went anyway. 

And then [Adnaan] actually recruited his brother to go because he wanted to work with him. We didn’t know that Tor was gonna go until, I think it was maybe a week or a couple weeks before he went. We didn’t know. I think maybe he didn’t know either, but we said, “Please do not go on the same boat.” 

And then, thank God, the organization said the same thing — “No, we can’t put family members on the same boat” — so they ended up going on different boats. Tor went on a motor yacht which I think ended up carrying 30 people, called the Huga, and Adnaan went on the Mikeno.

HN: How was this flotilla different from other aid efforts? Did your sons believe they could make a difference on the international stage?

Milleron: [Palestinians] keep getting killed, the intensity increases, the death toll increases — nothing happened for them because of the flotilla. Nothing at all. But it did increase global awareness. I see that it has activated networks — Spain sent a ship, Italy sent two ships [to protect the flotilla], Turkey sent two protective drones. 

But as Senator [Ed] Markey’s office told me, Israel acts in an escalatory way. So when [the flotilla] got to Crete, and they were underway [to Gaza], they dropped a variety of munitions on the five sailboats. The first attack was on the bigger motor vessels. And the second attack was on sailboats underway — they destroyed one of the masts.  So, at that point, when Spain and Greece and Italy realized that their people were in danger, that they could be killed, those countries sent a protective presence for the flotilla, and that became international news. 

HN: What has communication looked like with your sons over the past few weeks? How have you been receiving updates?

Milleron: Communication had been very good up until Israel jammed their communication systems, so we were able to communicate with Tor right before his abduction. He contacted us, you know, said they’re coming. There was plenty of notice — the Israelis asked them to stop sailing forward, and they told them, “No, we’re not gonna stop,” and so then they knew it was gonna happen. And Tor basically said goodbye to us, told us he was ready, told us that he was gonna go on hunger strike, that he wasn’t gonna eat anything from Israel, which is starving Palestinians. The whole mission of the flotilla is to take food to Palestinians, so why would they eat from the entity that is withholding the food? And not allowing them to deliver the aid, that’s a crime. 

Adnaan called us the day after. But then he went a long time [without communicating] and we didn’t have any contact with him. We were tracking the boat, and then the tracker stopped working after a certain time . . . it turned out he got nine miles from Gaza, nine nautical miles, so very close. 

I wasn’t really sure for a long time what his status was until we saw there was a person in the Ashdod port that took a picture [as] Israel took the people off the boats and put them on a prison ship. Israel was telling our embassy that they had safely taken all the passengers and crew off the boat, so then we assumed that Adnaan was in custody.

HN: What do you know about the legality of Israel’s interception of the flotilla in international waters?

Milleron: Well, I’m not an international lawyer, but I mean, it just seems very obvious, like, just from a common sense point of view, they abducted human beings that had the right to sail there. Maybe [the interception] could be considered legal if you say that Israel has the right to self-defense, but if you consider it from the [United Nations’] perspective, depriving a civilian population of the elements that they need for life — medical supplies, food — is a war crime. [HN: In an Oct. 1 post on X the Israeli Foreign Ministry wrote that it had “informed the flotilla that it is approaching an active combat zone and violating a lawful naval blockade.” In contrast, the Global Sumud Flotilla legal team describes the detainment as “illegal.”]

HN: What do you know about the interception, your sons’ holding conditions and the circumstances surrounding your sons’ return?

Milleron: I think that they’re only supposed to be held for three days, but it looks like Israel is making some kind of excuse for [Yom Kippur], or they’re holding them, I think, for more days. They abducted Tor on Wednesday. They should be releasing him [Saturday]. And I don’t think they are planning to do that. [HN: 137 activists have been deported to Turkey as of Oct. 4. The Israeli government has not provided any timeline to the public about the remaining activists’ release.]

HN: Do your sons and those aboard the flotilla have legal aid?

Milleron: Yeah, it was all organized. All of the participants already had a lawyer assigned to them in advance.

HN: What is your ask of the U.S. government in order to ensure your sons’ safe return? 

Milleron: Our government has total leverage over Israel. We provide funding for their existence. So, our government should just say, “Return these people, now, within the three-day window.”

HN: How has this experience affected you and your family?

Milleron: It’s been awful. I mean, we are worried and upset, wondering and trying to do all this advocacy. I have to definitely stop everything else in my life. But, it’s not awful compared to what people in Gaza have to tolerate. 

HN: Which (if any) government entities are you receiving information from?

Milleron: I am contacting our representatives, so our members of Congress. Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren’s offices have been amazing. Richard Neal’s office has also been an advocate. All of those senators and representatives have also been working on this — we’ve got a lot of information, really, from them.

HN: How can people support your sons and others who were aboard the flotilla?

Milleron: They can contact their own representatives and say that this shouldn’t be happening, and that the U.S. should not be allowing the entity that they fund — Israel — to take U.S. munitions and drop them on legally sailing vessels on the Mediterranean. Don’t look away from this illegal behavior on the part of Israel, because if you do, it will get worse. Object to it — actively object to it. 

In Crete, we asked the boys to get off the boat and we said, “You could die, please get off the boats, please come home.” 

 And they said, “We don’t want to live in a world where someone can act illegally like this with no problem, and just continue, and just hurt people with no consequence.”

If [Adnaan and Torleif] put their lives on the line for that, the rest of us can at least try to withdraw our money from supporting the illegal activity.