Tasmanian woman Madeleine Habib has been released from an Israeli prison and is on her way home after spending four days in detention for trying to deliver aid to Gaza.
Habib was freed on Sunday morning Israel time and taken to the Jordan border with other activists from the Freedom Flotilla.
Her release came as a ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump took effect.
The captain was arrested on October 8 after Israeli forces intercepted her ship, The Conscience, in international waters 120 nautical miles off Gaza.
The vessel was carrying 100 volunteers, including doctors and nurses, as well as medical supplies and food aid worth more than $110,000.
Israeli authorities detained Habib at Ketziot Prison, telling Australian consular officials she would remain there “indefinitely” unless she signed a waiver admitting she had attempted to break Israel’s naval blockade.
Habib initially refused to sign and it’s not yet clear whether she later agreed to the waiver.
While in detention, she told Australian officials she experienced “degradation but no physical abuse”, surviving on stale bread and brown tap water.
Her husband Stuart Baird on Sunday told Seven it was “really quite terrifying to be the partner of somebody who’s been abducted at sea”.
“It does seem completely unjust to stand in the way of people trying to deliver and bring aid to others who are suffering,” he said.
Tasmanian Greens Senator Nick McKim welcomed her release.
“Madeleine is a great Tasmanian and a true hero,” he said.
“Her courage has given heart to the people of Gaza and inspired so many of us around the world.”
McKim called the arrest “an act of piracy and kidnapping” and urged Foreign Minister Penny Wong to issue the “strongest possible diplomatic response”.
Habib is the eighth Australian to be detained by Israel for taking part in Gaza aid flotillas.
All nine ships in the Freedom Flotilla convoy were intercepted and their crews arrested.
