Thread: Israeli Navy Storms Humanitarian Flotilla, Kills 16

Israeli Navy Storms Humanitarian Flotilla, Kills 16


By Mel Frykberg
IPS - Inter Press Service


RAMALLAH, May 31, 2010 (IPS) - Israeli naval commandos shot dead 16 people and wounded over 30 on Monday morning, as they attacked an unarmed humanitarian and civilian flotilla - in international waters - trying to bring desperately needed aid to Gaza.

Chaos, confusion and outrage surround the exact circumstances under which the Free Gaza (FG) flotilla was stormed with live footage from a Turkish TV channel showing masked and heavily armed Israeli soldiers commandeering one of the six (FG) boats, the ‘Mavi Marmara’.

An Al Jazeera correspondent who was on board, reported that Israeli troops used live ammunition during the operation. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) countered that some of those on board attacked soldiers with sharp objects, including knives.

The organisers disputed this, saying the IDF opened fire as soon as they boarded the boats.

It is uncertain how the Turkish channel managed to air the live footage. Israeli authorities had scrambled the boats’ communications system shortly before the commando raid in a bid to prevent the crews from using navigational equipment and contacting the crews on the other boats.

The interference in the vessels’ communications systems was also a bid to prevent journalists on board from broadcasting live and humanitarian activists from using their mobile phones to update the media on developing events.

Earlier, IPS spoke with Huwaida Arraf, the chairwoman of the FG movement, on how the morale of the more than 700 people, including children and elderly, on board from 40 different countries, including journalists and 35 parliamentarians, was and how the trip was progressing.

"We are feeling optimistic and we are determined to reach Gaza," Arraf told IPS. However, when IPS tried to contact her on Monday morning her phone was not working.

The FG movement, an organisation aimed at breaking Israel’s devastating siege on Gaza following the takeover of the coastal territory by Hamas in June 2007, had planned to deliver over 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the impoverished strip.

Included in the aid on board were water purification kits, prefabricated homes, wheelchairs as well as some reconstruction material.

Thousands of homes were destroyed and damaged during Israel’s military assault on Gaza, codenamed Operation Cast Lead, at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009. As part of the siege Israel has forbidden nearly all reconstruction material from entering Gaza for rebuilding.

The FG movement has attempted numerous times over the last few years to bring boats to Gaza with some success. Most times, however, the Israeli navy intercepted the vessels, ramming several boats and arresting those on board.

However, this latest attempt has overshadowed previous ones in ambition, size and the scale of violence employed against it.

The clash at sea is the latest development in a publicity war between Israel and the FG movement which has attempted to draw international attention to the serious humanitarian conditions on the ground in Gaza.

As a violent, and possibly bloody, confrontation between the flotilla and the Israeli security forces seemed increasingly inevitable, with Israeli officials vowing to stop the vessels and the FG vowing to reach Gaza, the Israeli foreign ministry and the IDF launched a massive publicity campaign.

The Israeli daily ‘The Jerusalem Post’ reported that the IDF "has established a joint taskforce together with the Israel police, the foreign ministry and the Prisons Service to coordinate efforts to stop the flotilla and manage the potential media fallout."

The Israeli government’s media campaign stresses that the supplies the ships are carrying are unnecessary and that Israel – together with various international organisations – already transfers these supplies to Gaza via land crossings.

Despite Israel arguing that only items considered a "security threat" are banned from entering Gaza, coriander, pasta, fruit juice, toilet paper, chocolate, cigarettes, seedlings, school books and uniforms remain on a long list of goods that for the most part are banned.

Furthermore, the United Nations has released recently a report contradicting the Israeli government, saying, "Livelihoods and lives of people living in the Gaza Strip have been devastated by over 1,000 days of near complete blockade."

The U.N. also stated on Sunday that, "Most of the property and infrastructure damaged in Israel's offensive on the Gaza Strip is still unrepaired 12 months later and aid efforts have been largely ineffective."

The World Health Organisation released a facts sheet at the beginning of the year. "The lack of building materials is affecting essential health facilities: the new surgical wing in Gaza’s main Shifa hospital has remained unfinished since 2006. Hospitals and primary care facilities, damaged during operation ‘Cast Lead’, have not been rebuilt because construction materials are not allowed into Gaza."

"Israeli forces committed war crimes and other serious breaches of international law in the Gaza Strip during a 22-day military offensive which ended on Jan. 18, 2009," says Amnesty International (AI) in its latest annual report.

"Among other things, they carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks against civilians, targeted and killed medical staff, used Palestinian civilians as "human shields", and indiscriminately fired white phosphorus over densely populated residential areas.

"Israeli forces continued to impose severe restrictions on the movement of Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories throughout 2009, hampering access to essential services and land. The restrictions included a military blockade of the Gaza Strip, which effectively imprisoned the 1.5 million residents and resulted in a humanitarian crisis," added the AI report.

As news of the bloody assault on the humanitarian flotilla spreads across the West Bank and Gaza more violence seems imminent.

Clashes with Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli security forces loom as demonstrators gather in West Bank cities and towns and Gaza to vent their fury.

Meanwhile, Israel’s interception and attack on civilian vessels in international waters has raised the question of the state deliberately breaking international law.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51646

Israeli Commandos storm Gaza-bound ships in international waters
At least 10 die in Israeli raid on aid flotilla


NBC
May 31, 2010


A pro-Palestinian activist is evacuated to a hospital in Jerusalem after Israeli commandos stormed vessels carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip on Monday.


JERUSALEM - Israeli commandos on Monday stormed six ships carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists on an aid mission to the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens.

The operation in international waters off the Gaza coast was a nightmare scenario for Israel that looked certain to further damage its international standing, strain already tense relations with Turkey and draw unwanted attention to Gaza's plight.

The two sides offered conflicting accounts of what happened.

A reporter on one of the boats said the Israelis fired at the vessel before boarding it. Israeli officials said the soldiers were attacked with knives, clubs and iron bars as they boarded the six vessels. The Israeli military said the violence turned deadly after one of the activists grabbed a weapon from one of the commandos. The weapon discharged, though it wasn't clear whether the activist fired it or if it went off accidentally.

"Our initial findings show that at least 10 convoy participants were killed," an Israeli military spokesman said, adding that at least four soldiers were wounded.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak expressed regret for the deaths. However, he called the aid flotilla a "political provocation" by anti-Israel forces. Barak said the sponsors of the flotilla are violent.

However, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed shock over the incident and called on Israel to "urgently provide a full explanation."

Nobel laureate
Some 700 pro-Palestinian activists were on the boats, including 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators and an elderly Holocaust survivor.

NBC News reported that 11 Americans were among the civilians aboard the ships. They include a former ambassador and a former State Department official.

Al-Jazeera TV reported by telephone from the Turkish ship leading the flotilla that Israeli forces fired at the ship and boarded it, wounding the captain. The broadcast ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew, "Everybody shut up!"

Turkey's NTV network reported that dozens of activists were wounded. France24 television aired video of a woman in a Muslim headdress holding a stretcher with a large bloodstain on it. Below her lay a man, apparently injured, in a blanket.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas described the incident as a "massacre," the official Wafa news agency reported.

Abbas, whose Fatah faction lost control of the Gaza Strip in fighting with Hamas in 2007, declared three days of mourning in the Palestinian territories.

Israeli security forces were on alert across the country.

The tough Israeli response drew condemnations from Turkey, France and the U.N.'s Mideast envoy, while Greece suspended a military exercise with Israel and postponed a visit by Israel's air force chief. The European Union called for an investigation into the incident and urged Israel to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

About 10,000 Turks also marched from Israel's Consulate in Istanbul toward the city's main square, shouting slogans denouncing Israel. The protesters earlier Monday tried storm the Consulate building but were blocked by police.

In response, Israel advised its citizens Monday to avoid travel to Turkey and instructed those already there to keep a low profile.

In neighboring Jordan, hundreds demonstrated in the capital Amman to protest the Israeli action and demand that their government breaks diplomatic relations with the Jewish state.

Danny Ayalon, Israel's deputy foreign minister, told a news conference that weapons had been found aboard the vessels and described the flotilla as an "armada of hate and violence."

The activists were headed to Gaza on a mission meant to draw attention to a three-year-old Israeli blockade of the coastal territory. Israel imposed the blockade after Hamas militants took power there.

Pandemonium
Israel had declared it would not allow the ships to reach Gaza and had offered to transfer the aid to Gaza from an Israeli port. Israeli naval commandos raided the ships while they were in international waters after ordering them to stop about 80 miles from Gaza's coast, according to a pro-Palestinian activist in Greece involved in the aid mission.

A Turkish website showed video of pandemonium on board one of the ships, with people in orange life jackets running around as some tried to help an activist apparently unconscious on the deck. The site also showed video of an Israeli helicopter flying overhead and Israeli warships nearby.

Turkey's NTV showed activists beating one Israeli soldier with sticks as he rappelled from a helicopter onto one of the boats.

Israel had expected the operation to end without bloodshed and had prepared tents in an Israeli port for detainees.

The incident created a diplomatic storm with long-time Muslim ally Turkey, under whose flag some of the six ships were flying.

'Consequences'
The Turkish government said it "strongly protested" the military action, calling the interception unacceptable.

"Israel will have to endure the consequences of this behavior," a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said.

The flotilla was organized, among others, by a Turkish human rights organization. Turkey had urged Israel to allow it safe passage and said the 10,000 tonnes of aid the convoy was carrying was humanitarian.

Turkey, long Israel's best Muslim ally in a hostile Middle East, was highly critical of Israel's attack on Gaza 18 months ago, in which 1,400 Palestinians were killed.

Relations between the two states are now distinctly chilly and bloodshed at sea will do nothing to improve them.

The six-ship flotilla began the journey from international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Sunday afternoon after two days of delays. It had expected to reach Gaza, about 250 miles away, on Monday afternoon.

After nightfall Sunday, three Israeli navy missile boats left their base in Haifa, steaming out to sea to confront the activists' ships.

Two hours later, Israel Radio broadcast a recording of one of the missile boats warning the flotilla not to approach Gaza.

"If you ignore this order and enter the blockaded area, the Israeli navy will be forced to take all the necessary measures in order to enforce this blockade," the radio message continued.

Al-Jazeera earlier reported that the ships initially changed course to try to avoid a nighttime confrontation, preferring a daylight showdown for better publicity.

The boats are carrying items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and other building materials. The activists said they also were carrying hundreds of electric-powered wheelchairs, prefabricated homes and water purifiers.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said that after a security check, permitted humanitarian aid confiscated from the boats will be transferred to Gaza through authorized channels. However, Israel would not transfer items it has banned from Gaza under its blockade rules. Palmor said that for example, cement would be allowed only if it is tied to a specific project.

Israel and Egypt imposed the blockade on Gaza after Hamas militants violently seized control of the seaside territory in June 2007.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37423584/