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Freed after days held incommunicado in Israeli jail, survivors of Monday's storming of an aid ship described a "bloodbath", with people shot before their eyes and desperate efforts to treat the wounded.

Those aboard the flotilla returned home on Thursday after being held in Israeli jail since the raid, at last able to give their own accounts of the incident in which Israeli troops killed nine activists aboard the cruise liner Mavi Marmara.

There were sharp differences in accounts - activists accused Israeli troops of war crimes, while Israel held to its line that they fired in self-defence. In one of the key differences, activists denied Israeli accusations that they fired first, with guns they had seized from Israeli troops in the melee.

All sides described a scene of confusion and mayhem in the botched assault.

"People had been shot in the arms, legs, in the head - everywhere. We had so many injured. It was a bloodbath," said Laura Stuart, a British housewife and first aider.

She described frantic attempts to treat the injured in a makeshift sick room on the ship, and failed attempts to resuscitate some of the dead.

New Zealander Nicola Enchmarch who works for the British-based aid organisation, Viva Palestina, was on board one of the ships in the flotilla and said they were treated roughly and kept in horrible conditions.

Speaking from Istanbul, en route to Britain, she said they were treated poorly by the troops.

"They were very, very aggressive, not very pleasant at all," she said.

"They restricted people from using the toilets, we were bound with handcuffs, some of the men were blindfolded. At a later stage we were moved out on to the upper and lower decks of the ferry and everyone was kneeling with their hands bound."

She admitted they had fought back against the troops, saying: "We were defensive, of course."

"And the fact that they were being so aggressive and they were shooting at us and there was some sort of gas. I don't know that it was tear gas but and sound bombs and there was troops everywhere. They were very, very menacing, very aggressive and obviously didn't care who they were firing at."

Andre Abu Khalil, a Lebanese cameraman for Al Jazeera TV, gave an account that backed some of what both sides have said.

In his version, activists initially wounded and captured four Israelis from a first wave that boarded the ship. A second wave of troops tried to storm the ship after the four were taken below decks.

"Twenty Turkish men formed a human shield to prevent the Israeli soldiers from scaling the ship. They had slingshots, water pipes and sticks," he said. "They were banging the pipes on the side of the ship to warn the Israelis not to get closer."

After a 10-minute standoff the Israelis opened fire.

"One man got a direct hit to the head and another one was shot in the neck," he said. In all he saw some 40 people wounded, some to the legs, eye, stomach and chest.

One activist used a loudhailer to tell the Israelis the four captive soldiers were well and would be released if they provided medical help for the wounded activists. With an Israeli Arab lawmaker acting as mediator, the Israelis agreed. Wounded were brought to the deck and were airlifted off the ship.

Israel says its troops fired onlyafter some of their weapons had been seized by activists, who fired first.

"Once the soldiers saw knives, metal rods, chains, broken bottles, and they were shot at, they shot back and killed nine of them," Israeli military spokesman Captain Ayre Shalicar said.

One of the organisers on board who returned on Thursday from an Israeli jail, Bulent Yildirim, chairman of the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), said activists had indeed seized weapons, but never fired them.

"They were trying to land on the boat. So obviously there was this hand-to-hand combat and during that process the people on the boat were basically able to disarm some of the soldiers because they did have guns with them," Burney said.

Asked if anyone had used the guns against the Israeli commandos, he said: "No, not at all."

Canadian Farooq Burney, director of a Qatari educational initiative, said the commandos waited more than an hour before treating the wounded, even though activists had made a makeshift sign reading: "S.O.S. .. Please provide medical assistance."

The 37-year-old Canadian said he witnessed one elderly man bleed to death before his eyes after being shot.

"He just passed out in front of us and we couldn't see where he was hit so we opened up his lifejacket and we could clearly see that he was hit in the chest," Burney said. "He was losing a lot of blood. It was on ... the right, just close to his chest and there was blood coming out from there. He passed away."

The nine dead activists, who were brought home on Thursday in wooden coffins, were all Turks, including one dual US-Turkish citizen. Yildirim said some activists were still missing, adding that an Indonesian doctor was shot in the stomach as he helped a wounded Israeli soldier.

"I took off my shirt and waved it, as a white flag. We thought they would stop after seeing the white flag, but they continued killing people," Yildirim said. "A friend of ours saw two dead bodies in a toilet."

British activist Sarah Colborne, of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said she was on deck when commandos approached in boats, "bristling with arms". Others roped down from hovering helicopters and sound and gas bombs were let off.

"It looked like they were capable of killing anyone. They had obviously been fired up," the 43-year-old told reporters.

"I saw one person who had been shot in the head between the eyes," she said. "That made me realise how dangerous it was. That for me made me think they are using live ammunition, people are getting killed."

The prize-winning writer and creator of Wallander was among those on board the Gaza flotilla. Here he shares his private diary of the events leading to his capture

• Henning Mankell
• The Guardian, Saturday 5 June 2010
• Article history

On board the Mavi Marmara: ‘The Israelis have behaved like pirates.' Photograph: Kate Geraghty/Sydney Morning Her/Getty Images

Tuesday 25 May, Nice

It is five o'clock in the morning and I'm standing in the street waiting for the taxi that will take me to the airport in Nice. It's the first time in ages E and I have had some time off together. Initially we thought we'd be able to stretch it to two weeks. It turned out to be five days. Ship to Gaza finally seems to be ready to set off and I'm to travel to Cyprus to join it, as arranged.

As instructed, I've limited my luggage to a rucksack weighing no more than 10 kilos. Ship to Gaza has a clearly defined goal: to break Israel's illegal blockade. After the war a year ago, life has become more and more unbearable for the Palestinians who live in Gaza. There is a huge shortage of the bare necessities for living any sort of decent life.

But the aim of the voyage is of course more explicit. Deeds, not words, I think. It's easy to say you support or defend or oppose this, that and the other. But only action can provide proof of your words.

The Palestinians who have been forced by the Israelis to live in this misery need to know that they are not alone, not forgotten. The world has to be reminded of their existence. And we can do that by loading some ships with what they need most of all: medicines, desalination plants for drinking water, cement.

The taxi arrives, we agree a price – extortionate! – and drive to the airport through empty, early morning streets. It comes to me now that I made my first note, there in the taxi. I don't remember the exact words, but I'm suddenly disconcerted by a sense of not quite having managed to register that this is a project so hated by the Israelis that they might try to stop the convoy by violent means.

By the time I get to the airport, the thought has gone. On this point, too, the project is very clearly defined. We are to use non-violent tactics; there are no weapons, no intention of physical confrontation. If we're stopped, it ought to happen in a way that doesn't put our lives at risk.

 

Wednesday 26 May, Nicosia

It's warmer than in Nice. Those who are to board the ships somewhere off the coast of Cyprus are gathering at Hotel Centrum in Nicosia. It's like being in an old Graham Greene novel. A collection of odd people assembling in some godforsaken place to set off on a journey together. We're going to break an illegal blockade. The words are repeated in a variety of languages. But suddenly there's a great sense of uncertainty.

The ships are late, various problems have arisen, the coordinates still haven't been set for the actual rendezvous. The only thing that's certain is that it will be out at sea. Cyprus doesn't want our six ships putting in here. Presumably Israel has applied pressure.

Now and then I also note tensions between the various groups that make up the leadership of this unwieldy project. The breakfast room has been pressed into service as a secretive meeting room. We are called in to write details of our next of kin, in case of the worst. Everyone writes away busily. Then we are told to wait. Watch and wait. Those are the words that will be used most often, like a mantra, in the coming days. Wait. Watch and wait.

 

Thursday 27 May, Nicosia

Wait. Watch and wait. Oppressive heat.

 

Friday 28 May, Nicosia

I suddenly start to wonder whether I may have to leave the island without getting onto a ship. There seems to be a shortage of places. There are apparently waiting lists for this project of solidarity. But K, the friendly Swedish MP, and S, the Swedish female doctor, who are travelling with me help keep my spirits up. Travel by ship always involves some kind of bother, I think. We carry on with our task. Of waiting. Watching and waiting.

 

Saturday 29 May, Nicosia

Suddenly everything happens very quickly. We are now, but of course still only maybe, to travel sometime today on a different, faster ship to the point out at sea where the coordinates meet, and there we will join the convoy of five other vessels that will then head as a single flotilla for the Gaza Strip.

We carry on waiting. But at about 5pm the port authorities finally give us permission to board a ship called the Challenge, which will take us at a speed of 15 knots to the rendezvous point, where we will transfer to the cargo ship Sophia. There are already lots of people aboard the Challenge.

They seem a bit disappointed to see the three of us turn up. They had been hoping for some Irish campaigners who have, however, suddenly given up the idea and gone home. We climb aboard, say hello, quickly learn the rules. It's very cramped, plastic bags full of shoes everywhere, but the mood is good, calm. All the question marks seem to have been ironed out now. Soon after the two diesel engines rumble into life. We're finally underway.

 

23.00

I've found a chair on the rear deck. The wind is not blowing hard, but enough to make a lot of the passengers seasick. I have wrapped myself up in blankets, and watch the moon cast an illuminated trail across the sea. I think to myself that solidarity actions can take many forms. The rumbling means there is not a lot of conversation. Just now, the journey feels very peaceful. But deceptively so.

 

Sunday 30 May, at sea, south-east of Cyprus, 01.00

I can see the glimmer of lights in various directions. The captain, whose name I never manage to learn, has slowed his speed. The lights flickering in the distance are the navigation lights of two of the other ships in the convoy. We are going to lie here until daylight, when people can be transferred to other vessels. But I still can't find anywhere to sleep. I stay in my wet chair and doze.

Solidarity is born in dampness and waiting; but we are helping others to get roofs over their heads.

 

08.00

The sea is calmer. We are approaching the largest vessel in the flotilla. It's a passenger ferry, the "queen" of the ships in the convoy. There are hundreds of people on board. There has been much discussion of the likelihood of the Israelis focusing their efforts on this particular ship.

What efforts? We've naturally been chewing that over ever since the start of the project. Nothing can be known with any certainty. Will the Israeli navy sink the ships? Or repel them by some other means? Is there any chance the Israelis will let us through, and repair their tarnished reputation? Nobody knows. But it seems most likely that we'll be challenged at the border with Israeli territorial waters by threatening voices from loudspeakers on naval vessels. If we fail to stop, they will probably knock out our propellers or rudders, then tow us somewhere for repair.

 

13.00

The three of us transfer to the Sophia by rope ladder. She is a limping old cargo ship, with plenty of rust and an affectionate crew. I calculate that we are about 25 people in all. The cargo includes cement, reinforcement bars and prefabricated wooden houses. I am given a cabin to share with the MP, whom I view after the long days in Nicosia more and more as a very old friend. We find it has no electric light. We'll have to catch up on our reading some other time.

 

16.00

The convoy has assembled. We head for Gaza.

 

18.00

We gather in the improvised dining area between the cargo hatches and the ship's superstructure. The grey-haired Greek who is responsible for security and organisation on board, apart from the nautical aspects, speaks softly and immediately inspires confidence. Words like "wait" and "watch" no longer exist. Now we are getting close. The only question is: what are we getting close to?

Nobody knows what the Israelis will come up with. We only know that their statements have been menacing, announcing that the convoy will be repelled with all the means at their disposal. But what does that mean? Torpedoes? Hawsers? Soldiers let down from helicopters? We can't know. But violence will not be met with violence from our side.

Only elementary self-defence. We can, on the other hand, make things harder for our attackers. Barbed wire is to be strung all round the ship's rail. In addition, we are all to get used to wearing life jackets, lookouts are to be posted and we will be told where to assemble if foreign soldiers come aboard. Our last bastion will be the bridge.

Then we eat. The cook is from Egypt, and suffers with a bad leg. But he cooks great food.

 

Monday 31 May, midnight

I share the watch on the port side from midnight to 3am. The moon is still big, though occasionally obscured by cloud. The sea is calm. The navigation lights gleam. The three hours pass quickly. I notice I am tired when someone else takes over. It's still a long way to anything like a territorial boundary the Israelis could legitimately defend. I should try to snatch a few hours' sleep.

I drink tea, chat to a Greek crewman whose English is very poor but who insists he wants to know what my books are about. It's almost four before I get to lie down.

 

04.30

I've just dropped off when I am woken again. Out on deck I see that the big passenger ferry is floodlit. Suddenly there is the sound of gunfire. So now I know that Israel has chosen the route of brutal confrontation. In international waters.

It takes exactly an hour for the speeding black rubber dinghies with the masked soldiers to reach us and start to board. We gather, up on the bridge. The soldiers are impatient and want us down on deck. Someone who is going too slowly immediately gets a stun device fired into his arm. He falls. Another man who is not moving fast enough is shot with a rubber bullet. I think: I am seeing this happen right beside me. It is an absolute reality. People who have done nothing being driven like animals, being punished for their slowness.

We are put in a group down on the deck. Where we will then stay for 11 hours, until the ship docks in Israel. Every so often we are filmed. When I jot down a few notes, a soldier comes over at once and asks what I am writing. That's the only time I lose my temper, and tell him it's none of his business. I can only see his eyes; don't know what he is thinking. But he turns and goes.

Eleven hours, unable to move, packed together in the heat. If we want to go for a pee, we have to ask permission. The food they give us is biscuits, rusks and apples. We're not allowed to make coffee, even though we could do it where we are sitting. We take a collective decision: not to ask if we can cook food.

Then they would film us. It would be presented as showing how generously the soldiers had treated us. We stick to the biscuits and rusks. It is degradation beyond compare. (Meanwhile, the soldiers who are off-duty have dragged mattresses out of the cabins and are sleeping at the back of the deck.)

So in those 11 hours, I have time to take stock. We have been attacked while in international waters. That means the Israelis have behaved like pirates, no better than those who operate off the coast of Somalia. The moment they start to steer this ship towards Israel, we have also been kidnapped. The whole action is illegal.We try to talk among ourselves, work out what might happen, and not least how the Israelis could opt for a course of action that means painting themselves into a corner.

The soldiers watch us. Some pretend not to understand English. But they all do. There are a couple of girls among the soldiers. They look the most embarrassed. Maybe they are the sort who will escape to Goa and fall into drug addiction when their military service is over? It happens all the time.

 

18.00

Quayside somewhere in Israel. I don't know where. We are taken ashore and forced to run the gauntlet of rows of soldiers while military TV films us. It suddenly hits me that this is something I shall never forgive them. At that moment they are nothing more to my mind than pigs and bastards.

We are split up, no one is allowed to talk to anyone else. Suddenly a man from the Israeli ministry for foreign affairs appears at my side. I realise he is there to make sure I am not treated too harshly. I am, after all, known as a writer in Israel. I've been translated into Hebrew. He asks if I need anything.

'My freedom and everybody else's,' I say. He doesn't answer. I ask him to go. He takes one step back. But he stays.

I admit to nothing, of course, and am told I am to be deported. The man who says this also says he rates my books highly. That makes me consider ensuring nothing I write is ever translated into Hebrew again.

Agitation and chaos reign in this "asylum-seekers' reception centre". Every so often, someone is knocked to the ground, tied up and handcuffed. I think several times that no one will believe me when I tell them about this. But there are many eyes to see it. Many people will be obliged to admit that I am telling the truth. There are a lot of us who can bear witness.

A single example will do. Right beside me, a man suddenly refuses to have his fingerprints taken. He accepts being photographed. But fingerprints? He doesn't consider he has done anything wrong. He resists. And is beaten to the ground. They drag him off. I don't know where. What word can I use? Loathsome? Inhuman? There are plenty to choose from.

 

23.00

We, the MP, the doctor and I, are taken to a prison for those refused right of entry. There we are split up. We are thrown a few sandwiches that taste like old dishcloths. It's a long night. I use my trainers as a pillow.

 

Tuesday 1 June, afternoon

Without any warning, the MP and I are taken to a Lufthansa plane. We are to be deported. We refuse to go until we know what is happening to S Once we have assured ourselves that she, too, is on her way, we leave our cell.

On board the plane, the air hostess gives me a pair of socks. Because mine were stolen by one of the commandos who attacked the boat I was on.

The myth of the brave and utterly infallible Israeli soldier is shattered. Now we can add: they are common thieves. For I was not the only one to be robbed of my money, credit card, clothes, MP3 player, laptop; the same happened to many others on the same ship as me, which was attacked early one morning by masked Israeli soldiers, who were thus in fact nothing other than lying pirates.

By late evening we are back in Sweden. I talk to some journalists. Then I sit for a while in the darkness outside the house where I live. E doesn't say much.

 

Wednesday 2 June, afternoon

I listen to the blackbird. A song for those who died.

Now it is still all left to do. So as not to lose sight of the goal, which is to lift the brutal blockade of Gaza. That will happen.

Beyond that goal, others are waiting. Demolishing a system of apartheid takes time. But not an eternity.

Copyright Henning Mankell. This article was translated by Sarah Death

They have been shot at, imprisoned, deported and threatened – what makes somebody prepared to risk their lives to go into the occupied territories?

• 
• • Emine Saner
  • The Guardian, Saturday 5 June 2010
  • Article history

As the British activists aboard the aid flotilla to Gaza return to the UK, it becomes clear that the majority of them are people who have devoted years to campaigning against the Israeli occupation. They have been shot at, imprisoned, deported and threatened over the years and still they go back. What makes somebody prepared to risk their lives to go into the occupied territories? Ewa Jasiewicz, an activist and journalist, had been involved in anti-capitalist and social justice campaigns in Britain when friends returned from the West Bank where they had been volunteers with the newly formed International Solidarity Movement in 2002. "They said it was something that everyone should do, because you could prevent someone getting killed or injured," she says, on the phone from Istanbul, where she had been deported after being arrested along with the other activists on the aid flotilla to Gaza.

She saw Israeli soldiers mount a raid on the Mavi Marmara, killing at least nine activists and wounding many more, before soldiers came after her boat. "Our engines failed and we stopped," she says. "[The Israeli soldiers] were incredibly aggressive. They were saying 'fuck you, fucking bitch, I'll kill you'."

Sarah Colborne, 43, director of campaigns and operations at the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, was on the Mavi Marmara. She says the experience hasn't scared her from going to the occupied territories in the future. "People went because they felt they had to do something to challenge Israel and the blockade of Gaza. We didn't actually think we would be murdered doing that. But Palestinians get killed every day and I hope that what we did does change the situation and force the world to end Israel's violations of international law." She has been involved in campaigning since being at university in the late 80s. "I suppose it came from a deep-rooted sense that my life was not worth anything unless I was challenging injustice."

When Alex Harrison, 31, first went to the West Bank in 2003, she thought it would be a one-off, but it immediately became clear that she wouldn't be able to forget it. "It's one of those rare times in life when you feel you really can make a change and once you have that sense, you can't turn your back on it," she says. She spent two years in the West Bank. The chance that she might be killed isn't something that frightens her, she says. "I'm frightened more about being wounded and being a burden on other people." Her mother, Sandra Law, admits it was always worrying when her daughter was away, "but I'm one of the lucky ones because she has come back safely".

Of all the activists I speak to, none has been scared off by their experiences. Jasiewicz was standing next to Brian Avery, an American activist, when he was shot in the face in 2003; another friend Caoimhe Butterly was shot in the thigh as she stood between an Israel Defence Force (IDF) tank and three young boys the year before. The tight-knit nature of the international group means that many of them met and became friends with fellow activists such as Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall, both fatally wounded by the IDF. In 2002, on her first trip to Gaza, Sharyn Lock, one of the founders of the Free Gaza Movement, was shot in the stomach and would have died had she not been so close to a hospital. "In a way it made me realise what occupation is," she says. "It was also the first time I realised that Israel had a policy of preventing the wounded getting treatment. I was in a hospital that was virtually empty, because every time the ambulances tried to answer calls they would be shot at or turned back by the Israeli army. That wasn't something I could come home and forget." She returned several times, before being banned by Israel, which was when a group of them came up with the idea of getting around this with the aid flotilla. Although she wasn't travelling on this one, she has done several trips in the past. "We knew we were doing something dangerous, but human rights overrides that fear for me."

"We're just like anybody else," insists Lock. "If you were on the street and you saw a car about to knock down a child, I think most of us would step in and try to get that child to safety. What motivates us is the same."

Hedy Epstein, 85, says her activism "came with my genes. My parents [both German Jews] were anti-Zionists so I grew up with that.." Epstein left Germany in 1939 on the kindertransport to England; her parents, and many other relatives, were killed in the Holocaust. She has always been involved in human rights campaigning, she says on the phone from Cyprus, where officials prevented her and other activists boarding one of the boats to Gaza. "In 1982 when I learned about the massacre in two refugee camps in Shabra and Shatila, I needed to find out what that was about. The more I learned, the more deeply troubled I was by the policies and practices of the Israeli government and military. In 2003, I went to the West Bank for the first time time to witness what was really happening there." She has been back five times, and spends the rest of the time in the US giving lectures about what she witnessed. "Each time I've gone back it was worse than the time before." She says she always goes to the West Bank knowing that she might not come back, "but it has never stopped me. If the Palestinians can put up with it, I certainly should be able to. They cannot escape it, I always have the opportunity to leave whenever I want."

 

For Epstein, the threats don't stop once she is safely home. Last year, she was assaulted in her street and feels she was probably targeted. "The mainstream American Jewish community almost speak in one voice and if you dare to criticise Israel you are called anti-Semitic and if you are Jewish you're called self-hating, a traitor. I get nasty emails. I've been told I should be ashamed of myself and so on."

Fighting for human rights in Palestine might start as principle or ideology, but it quickly becomes an emotional issue, says Jasiewicz. "We have friends who feel like family there and it feels a very personal issue now." For Epstein, it's about taking responsibility. "I don't think I can change the world, but I can maybe contribute one small piece towards that goal of making it possible for the Palestinian people to be free and to live a normal human life," she says. "If you stand by and do nothing, you become part of the problem, you become complicit with what is happening."

Gaza activist 'shot every minute'

Israeli commandos shot passengers at the rate of one a minute during the bloody raid on an aid flotilla bound for Gaza, a Briton on board the main vessel said.

Ismail Patel, chairman of Leicester-based Palestinian rights group Friends of Al Aqsa, said one of the nine people killed during the assault was shot just two feet in front of him.

He claimed the commandos had a "shoot to kill" policy during the initial phase of the attack on the Mavi Marmara, with live rounds being fired on the vessel from a helicopter hovering above.

Mr Patel, who returned to the UK after attending the funerals of his shipmates in Turkey, told a press conference in Westminster the gunfire on the vessel last around an hour. Despite Israeli claims of armed resistance, Mr Patel said those on board acted in self-defence using whatever was at hand.

Mr Patel said: "We now can calculate that they shot one person every minute. One person was shot every minute. There were nine fatalities, over 48 people with gunshot wounds, six are unaccounted for."

Mr Patel said the initial assault was mounted from the water, with sound bombs, tear gas and stun grenades fired against the Mavi Marmara, but people on the vessel threw items overboard to repel the attack. Then the helicopter appeared overhead "and started using immediately live ammunition" without any warning being issued. After the first victim fell the white flag was raised, Mr Patel said, but Israeli forces continued firing and soldiers rappelled to the deck on ropes.

As the death toll mounted Mr Patel used the ship's public address system to call for a surrender. "I spoke in English very calmly and said 'we are only civilians, we surrender' and requested my colleagues to sit down in their chairs, put their hands and legs on the tables and not to make any movement." But, he said: "Despite our repeated calls the firing continued."

Once the troops had the passengers surrounded the vessel was diverted to an Israeli port and Mr Patel and his colleagues were detained in prison. Alex Harrison, 32, from Islington, North London, was on one of the smaller vessels in the flotilla and witnessed the Mavi Marmara being stormed.

Ms Harrison, from the Free Gaza Movement, said: "I have seen some selective footage that the Israelis have chosen to put out suggesting that we responded with violence. You must remember that these are unarmed civilians on their own boat in the middle of the Mediterranean. People picked up what they could to defend themselves against armed, masked commandos who were shooting."

Foreign Secretary William Hague confirmed that a total of 34 of the activists on the aid flotilla were British, with all but two of them having been sent to Turkey by the Israeli authorities. Israel has previously said its troops had been left with no choice after they came under attack from activists armed with knives and iron bars when they were dropped by helicopter onto the ship.

First Published 2010-06-04


Haneen Zoubi

 
Israeli MP tells of her terror on aid ship

 
Witness: Israelis fired on Mavi Marmara few minutes before commandos went on board ship.

 
By Jonathan Cook - NAZARETH, Israel

An Arab member of the Israeli parliament who was on board the international flotilla that was attacked on Monday as it tried to take humanitarian aid to Gaza accused Israel yesterday of intending to kill peace activists as a way to deter future convoys.

Haneen Zoubi said Israeli naval vessels had surrounded the flotilla’s flagship, the Mavi Marmara, and fired on it a few minutes before commandos abseiled from a helicopter directly above them.

Terrified passengers had been forced off the deck when water was sprayed at them. She said she was not aware of any provocation or resistance by the passengers, who were all unarmed.

She added that within minutes of the raid beginning, three bodies had been brought to the main room on the upper deck in which she and most other passengers were confined. Two had gunshot wounds to the head, in what she suggested had been executions.

Two other passengers slowly bled to death in the room after Israeli soldiers ignored messages in Hebrew she had held up at the window calling for medical help to save them. She said she saw seven other passengers seriously wounded.

“Israel had days to plan this military operation,” she told a press conference in Nazareth. “They wanted many deaths to terrorise us and to send a message that no future aid convoys should try to break the siege of Gaza.”

Released early yesterday by police, apparently because of her parliamentary immunity, she said she was speaking out while most of the hundreds of other peace activists were either being held by Israel for deportation or were under arrest.

Three other leaders of Israel’s large Palestinian Arab minority, including Sheikh Raed Salah, a spiritual leader, were arrested as their ships docked in the southern port of Ashdod. Lawyers said that under Israeli law they could be held and questioned for up to 30 days without being charged.

Contradicting Israeli claims, Ms Zoubi said a search by the soldiers after they took control of the Marmara discovered no arms or other weapons.

It was vital, she added, that the world demand an independent UN inquiry to find out what had happened on the ship rather than allow Israel to carry out a “whitewash” with its own military investigation.

Ms Zoubi spoke as Palestinians inside both Israel and the occupied territories observed a general strike called by their leaders.

A statement from the High Follow-Up Committee, the main political body for Israel’s Palestinian citizens, described the raid on the flotilla as “state-sponsored terrorism”.

Demonstrations and marches in most of the main Palestinian towns and villages in Israel passed off quietly. Local analysts described the mood as angry but subdued, not least because of the openly hostile climate that has developed towards Palestinian citizens since crackdowns on their protests during the Israeli attack on Gaza 18 months ago.

However, police were reported to have been put on high alert, with thousands of extra officers drafted into the north, where most Palestinian citizens live.

On Monday, clashes between protesters and police broke out close to the al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem’s Old City and in the northern town of Umm al Fahm after false rumours circulated that Sheikh Salah, the leader of Israel’s main Islamic Movement, had been killed in the Israeli naval operation.

Police were reported to have arrested 18 youths, mainly for throwing stones in various locations in the north.

Scores of Palestinians demonstrated outside the Turkish consulate in East Jerusalem yesterday to show their support for Ankara, which has harshly criticised Israeli actions. Two demonstrators were reported to have been arrested by police.

In the West Bank, many Palestinians observed the first of three days of mourning decreed by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, over the killings of international activists.

Even before the attack on the flotilla, the country’s Palestinian minority, a fifth of the population, had been braced for a backlash from the government and Jewish public for its leaders’ participation in the flotilla. As the ships set sail, Ynet, Israel’s most popular news website, had asked whether Ms Zoubi was an “MP in the service of Hamas”.

But faced with the severe diplomatic fall-out from Israel’s killing of peace activists, Israel’s Palestinian leaders warned that they were likely to come under even fiercer criticism in coming days.

Yesterday right-wing parties launched their first attacks on Ms Zoubi, demanding the revocation of her immunity and her expulsion from the parliament. Danny Danon, a member of the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, called for her to be “tried for treason”.

In her statement on the attack, Ms Zoubi said that at 4am on Monday she had seen at least 14 Israeli boats surround their ship 130km out at sea, in international waters.

She said the passengers had been gripped with fear at the noise and confusion as the commandos abseiled on to the deck. “I did not believe we were going to survive more than five minutes,” she said.

Taleb al Sana, another Arab MP, supported Ms Zoubi’s contention that Israeli claims that the commandos shot only at the passengers’ legs were false. “I have visited the wounded in hospital and they all have shot wounds to the head and body,” he said.

Adalah, a legal centre for Israel’s Arab minority, said nine lawyers had been given limited access yesterday afternoon to the hundreds of activists detained in Beersheva and were trying to take testimonies “in very difficult circumstances”.

Its lawyers and human rights groups were also trying to track down who had been injured and where they being treated.

“Our view is that Israel is intentionally trying to obstruct this work and is enforcing an information blackout,” said Gaby Rubin, a spokeswoman for Adalah.

(Reuters) - Nine Turkish activists killed in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship were shot a total of 30 times and five died of gunshot wounds to the head, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported on Friday.

World

 

Autopsy results showed the men were hit mostly with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range, the Guardian said, quoting Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine which carried out the autopsies on Friday.

Israeli commandos stormed a flotilla of aid ships planning to break the Israeli sea blockade of Gaza on Monday. The deaths, which all took place on one ship, the Mavi Marmara, drew widespread condemnation.

Israel said the marines who rappelled onto the Mavi Marmara fired in self-defense after activists attacked them with clubs and knives as well as two pistols snatched from the commandos.

The autopsy results showed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back, the Guardian said.

A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has U.S. citizenship, was shot five times from less than 45 cm (18 inches) away, in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back, it said.

Two other men were shot four times. Five of those killed were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, the Guardian quoted Buyuk as saying.

In addition to those killed, 48 others suffered gunshot wounds and six activists were still missing, he added.

Israel said the multiple gunshot wounds did not mean the shots were fired other than in self defense.

"The only situation when a soldier shot was when it was a clearly a life-threatening situation," the Guardian quoted a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in London as saying.

"Pulling the trigger quickly can result in a few bullets being in the same body, but does not change the fact they were in a life-threatening situation," the spokesman said.

The newspaper quoted Haluk Ince, chairman of the council of forensic medicine in Istanbul, as saying that in only one case was there a single bullet wound, to the forehead from a distant shot, while every other body showed multiple wounds.

He said all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds. Of the other round, Ince said: "It was the first time we have seen this kind of material used in firearms. It was just a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns. It penetrated the head region in the temple and we found it intact in the brain."

No-one at Turkey's forensic laboratory could immediately be reached for comment.

Turkey, Israel's only Muslim ally, stepped up its rhetoric over the killings on Friday, accusing the Jewish state of betraying its own biblical law.

(Reporting by Adrian Croft)

UPDATED: EARLIER VIDEO RELEASED BY ISRAEL PROVIDES FURTHER PROOF OF AUDIO FAKERY

Today, Israel released what it claimed to be the audio of a conversation between Israeli naval vessels and the Turkish-owned ship Mavi Marmara which occurred prior to the Israeli assault that killed at least 9 passengers and injured dozens more in the early hours of 31 May in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean. This audio clip, which the Israelis titled "Radio Transmission from Mavi Marmara to Israeli Navy" appears to be fabricated.

 

The following is a transcript of the audio:

ISRAELI SHIP "This is the Israeli Navy, you are approaching an area which is under a naval blockade"

MAN'S VOICE 1 "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz."

WOMAN'S VOICE "We have permission from the Gaza Port Authority to enter."

MAN'S VOICE 2 "We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11 guy"

On hearing the recording Adam Shapiro, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, identified the woman's voice as that of his wife Huwaida Arraf, chair of the Free Gaza Movement. However, Arraf was not aboard the Mavi Marmara. She was aboard one of the small passenger vessels in the six-boat flotilla, called Challenger 1. She recounted what she experienced on Russia Today, among other major media outlets (video below). It would appear that Israel has once more been caught fabricating evidence in its desperate effort to justify its violent assault on the Free Gaza Flotilla, a civilian convoy carrying humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Update 1

Thanks to Marian Houk (http://twitter.com/MarianHouk ), I have learned that the Israeli army originally uploaded a video (below) in which the same naval officer in the video above has an innocuous conversation with a ship in which the only reply from the ship is "Negative, Negative, our destination is Gaza." There is no "anti-Semitism" or anything that paints the Flotilla passengers as raving bigots. The earlier video actually shows the officer moving, whereas in the previous video in which a speaker allegedly says "Go back to Auschwitz" we simply see a still picture of the same naval officer while the audio plays. This is further evidence of complete fabrication.

Update 2

See also IDF Releases Apparently Doctored Flotilla Audio; Press Reports As Fact, by Max Blumenthal.

While the Obama administration has refused to condemn the Israeli flotilla raid outright, survivors of the assault continue to challenge Israeli military claims that soldiers acted in self-defense after rappelling onto the lead vessel, the Mavi Marmara. We speak to two passengers who were aboard the ship: Kevin Neish of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and Kevin Ovenden of Viva Palestina.[includes rush transcript]

Rush Transcript
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AMY GOODMAN: Up to 20,000 people gathered in Istanbul on Thursday to pay tribute to the nine activists killed by the Israeli commandos in the Gaza aid flotilla attack. The coffins were carried through central Istanbul, draped in Turkish and Palestinian flags. Larger services are expected today.

Eight of those killed were from Turkey, and one, the youngest, was a US citizen. He was nineteen years old. His name was Furkan Do?an. He was born in Troy, New York. He moved to Turkey when he was two with his family. An autopsy showed he was shot at close range, four times in the head, once in the chest. He’ll be buried today in his family’s hometown in central Turkey.

Back in the United States, President Obama has refused to condemn the Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla. He was questioned by CNN’s Larry King.

LARRY KING: Former President Carter has condemned the Israeli raid against those ships in the flotilla trying to break the blockade of Gaza.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Right.

LARRY KING: Where you stand on that? A former American president has condemned it.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, you know, the United States, with the other members of the UN Security Council, said very clearly that we condemned all the acts that led up to this violence. It was a tragic situation. You’ve got loss of life that was unnecessary. And so, we are calling for an effective investigation of everything that happened, and I think that the Israelis are going to agree to that, an investigation of international standards, because they recognize that this can’t be good for Israel’s long-term security.

Here’s what we’ve got. You’ve got a situation in which Israel has legitimate security concerns when they’ve got missiles raining down on cities along the Israel-Gaza border. I’ve been to those towns and seen the holes that were made by missiles coming through people’s bedrooms. So Israel has a legitimate concern there. On the other hand, you’ve got a blockade up that is preventing people in Palestinian Gaza from having job opportunities and being able to create businesses and engage in trade and have opportunity for the future.

LARRY KING: Premature, then, to condemn Israel?

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, I think that we need to know what all the facts are, but it’s not premature to say to the Israelis and to say to the Palestinians and to say to all the parties in the region that the status quo is unsustainable.

AMY GOODMAN: While the Obama administration has refused to condemn the Israeli flotilla raid outright, the attack has sparked worldwide protest and outrage. The Turkish president has said the once-close Turkish-Israeli ties will never be the same, and South Africa has recalled its ambassador to Israel.

Meanwhile, survivors of the assault have challenged Israeli military claims that soldiers acted in self-defense after rappelling onto the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara. Some say Israeli troops opened fire before boarding the vessel. Passengers on other ships in the flotilla say they were threatened at gunpoint.

Kevin Neish is a Canadian citizen who was aboard the Mavi Marmara. He’s with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. He’s joining us on the phone from Istanbul.

Kevin Ovenden was aboard the Mavi Marmara, as well. He’s the coordinator with Viva Palestina. He joins us now on the phone from Istanbul.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! We’re going to begin with Kevin Ovenden. Where were you on the ship? What time was it? And what happened?

KEVIN OVENDEN: It was 5:25 in the morning, there or thereabout. I was on the second level down on the starboard side of the ship. The assault began with percussion grenades, which were thrown onto the deck of the ship and onto be roof. Israeli soldiers were in commando units, were in militarized dinghies on either side of the ship and a helicopter above, from which they parasailed—sorry, abseiled down onto the roof of the ship.

AMY GOODMAN: And what happened next?

KEVIN OVENDEN: What happened was that there were the initial gunshots of what we presumed to be rubberized bullets. I hesitate to say rubber bullets, because they’re steel bullets with a rubber coating. And then very, very rapidly afterwards—I’m talking a matter of some seconds afterwards—there was the unmistakable sound of live fire, and we started to take heavy casualties.

A colleague of mine, a New Zealander with Viva Palestina called Nicci Enchmarch, she was on the top deck. She was next to a man, a Turkish man, who was holding a camera. He was shot directly through the forehead. The bullet, the exit wound, blew away the back third of his skull, and she cradled him as he died.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin, you are just coming from one of the funerals?

KEVIN OVENDEN: I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I couldn’t hear.

AMY GOODMAN: I know you’re having a little trouble hearing. Are you just coming from one of the funerals?

KEVIN OVENDEN: I am. I, just this minute, left the Beyazit Masjid in Istanbul, where there was a huge funeral for Cevdet Kiliçlar .

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Neish is also on the line with us—Kevin Ovenden, I want you to stay on—a Canadian citizen with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. Where were you on the Mavi Marmara when the Israeli commandos came onboard?

KEVIN NEISH: I was initially at the rear of the ship on deck two. I had just finished having a bit of a nap and was getting ready to get up and do some things, and flash grenades and tear gas rained down on the back of our ship, and general mayhem. I was inside the ship. I could see through the windows on the back of the stern that it was tear gas and flash grenades and lots of noise and ruckus and whatnot.

I then went from there on deck two to the landing of the stairwell going up. There was a medical station on the first deck, a small little medical station. Two people could lay down on the tarp. Then I proceeded up the stairs to the third and the fourth level. I think that’s the way we call it. First deck is right down below with no access to the other side, where the women were. Anyways, then I proceeded up to the top and watched the proceedings from inside.

I stepped out on the deck at just one point, just to look at the Israeli rigid-hulled Zodiacs, big—I think forty-feet long, I believe, they’re huge—and gunboats, regular-hulled gunboats, just sort of, I guess, roaring up on either side. And then, I spent—I don’t know what time it was. I’ve been told it was 4:00, 4:30. I didn’t check my watch. But then, from there, I watched them pull in a couple of Israeli commandos, I guess, and strip them of their weapons and then pack them down the stairs. And then the wounded, wounded and dead—the staircase was slick with blood on one side where I came down. Blood splattered on my clothing.

And, anyways, carry on. What would you like to know?

AMY GOODMAN: What happened to you after that and to the people around you? Were you, yourself, beaten or hurt physically?

KEVIN NEISH: Well, physically, I was trussed up with plastic handcuffs for twenty-five hours and refused access to any wash facility for fifteen hours. You had to beg, beg the Israeli captors. I had to grovel, basically, to get access to a bathroom. So I wouldn’t grovel. I’d basically—well, [inaudible] I just peed on the floor wherever I could kind of thing. But you didn’t get up, you didn’t rise up, or you got threatened with clubs or a dog or a gun to your head or whatever. And, yeah—

AMY GOODMAN: Where were you being held, Kevin?

KEVIN NEISH: Initially on the—I think it was the deck two—deck two, I believe, on the rear of the ship. We were—initially we went—when the captain announced in Arabic, but it was obvious what was happening, he announced the ceasefire, basically, or giving up of the ship, I guess you could call it, the Israeli commandos had taken over the bridge, finally. I think the struggle was about a half an hour, I’m told. It’s hard to tell, my part.

Then we just—we all went down to where we usually sat and slept, on the benches and whatnot in the cruise ship or dignitaries’ lounge, and just waited for the Israelis to decide what to do. They were all outside on the stern again, where the initial—I thought the initial attack was, from what I saw. And they sat there and watched through the windows. And anybody got out of their chair, you had two or three little red laser dots on you and yelling and screaming to sit down. And they packed up the dead and the wounded. Hanin, the Palestinian Israeli Knesset member, she was very brave. She stepped forward to speak and negotiate to get the very thirsty, injured, wounded Turks and Arab out of the medical area. The deck that I first saw, with two little—you know, maybe space for two people to lay down, it was covered in people. It was sort of a mass of—I just—you know, it’s hard to remember now, but, you know, I think [inaudible]—you know, I went, you know, four days without sleep. After I got into prison, they didn’t let me sleep.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask Kevin Ovenden, the Israeli military—the Prime Minister, Netanyahu, has said that the Israeli commandos acted in self-defense. Your response to this?

KEVIN OVENDEN: It’s an utterly risible claim, which is not convincing anybody around the world, which is why this is seen, widely seen, as the Sharpeville and Soweto, not of the Palestinians themselves—they suffered many massacres, from [inaudible] and onwards—but of the solidarity movement for the Palestinian people. The facts are plain. We were in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean. This was a peaceful ship. The youngest participant was not yet one year old. The oldest was eighty-eight years old. We had, among our number, parliamentarians, including two members of the German Bundestag. We had religious people, including the exiled archbishop of the Eastern Catholic Church of Jerusalem. We were attacked in international waters, without warning, unprovoked, by a full-scale commando raid, the equivalent of Special Forces, Delta Forces, Navy Seals and so on. Each of these soldiers who attacked was heavily armed with assault rifles, side arms, commando knives and other weapons. In no sense could this be described as an aggressive move by the Mavi Marmara, a ship of peace, a humanitarian ship. The aggression, the assault, was by the Israeli forces in international waters. You know, if the Somali pirates had done this, it would be regarded as an act of outrageous brigandage internationally. The fact that it’s a tyrannical state on the eastern Mediterranean makes it no different.

AMY GOODMAN: Did you see commandos opening fire before they landed on the ship?

KEVIN OVENDEN: That’s difficult to ascertain. That’s why we require a full, independent international investigation. The Israelis cannot be trusted to conduct their own investigation. They seized evidence, destroyed evidence, seized and destroyed cameras, computers, every single camera and computer onboard. They selectively put out pictures. For example, I’ve seen pictures in the papers of knives that they collected—well, which is unsurprising. We had knives in the kitchen. It’s to cut cucumbers, to cut tomatoes. And all of the knives are indeed kitchen knives.

The evidence for the peaceful intent of people on the boat is simply this, that two Israeli soldiers that I know of were overpowered, as people instinctively resisted with bare hands and whatever was around them—they were overpowered, but they were not harmed. The injuries they sustained were only those of being knocked to the ground. They were disarmed and handed back to the Israeli military as soon as was possible, which is after they had murdered nine people onboard the ship. There was every opportunity to inflict harm on those two soldiers, and no harm was inflicted. They were simply kept apart and dealt with by the medical team onboard. So none of this stacks up.

And there has to be not simply an international investigation, but actually following on from that. We know that the report by Richard Goldstone was highly critical of the Israeli assault on the people of Gaza December 2009, January 2010, and yet Israel has ignored that report. Words and condemnation need to be followed by sanctions and the immediate—the immediate step that needs to be taken is for the siege on the people of Gaza to be lifted, because what we endured for forty-eight hours is but a concentrated form of what they endure every day, year in, year out.

AMY GOODMAN: Kevin Ovenden, I want to thank you for being with us, coordinator with Viva Palestina. He’s speaking to us from the streets of Istanbul, where he has just attended a funeral for one of the activists who was killed in the Israeli commando raid on the Gaza humanitarian flotilla. Kevin Neish also with us, speaking to us from Turkey, where he was deported to, a Canadian citizen with the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid. He is headed back to Canada.

Testimonies from Passengers begin to come in

Written by Free Gaza Team | 03 June 2010

We will begin to post testimonies of the Israeli attack from passengers as they come in. Here is one from Sweden.

In an interview with Sweden's largest news bureau TT, Mattias Gardell, professor of religion and spokesperson for Shiptogaza.se, said the Israelis shot live from the air, gave wounded no treatment. He said activists threw away Isreali weapons, and he fears activists drowned:

"- The Israelis committed premeditated murder. There were rangers with laser sights. Two people were killed by shots in the forehead, one was shot in the back of the head and one in the chest. Several of those killed were journalists. I saw one of the bodies and heard many corroborative testimonies, says Mattias Gardell on the phone from Istanbul.

- First came the special forces of silent boats. Then the defenders of our boat used fire hoses and made it impossible for the Israelis to come on board. Some soldiers were captured. An Uzi and a pistol were seized,  emptied of ammunition and were thrown into the sea. We would by all means show that there was a peaceful campaign and that we did not have weapons, said Gardell.

- Then came the paratroopers in four helicopters and they shot sharply already from the time they were in the air, he says.

Gardell says that the attack was launched at exactly 04:10 local time on Monday and that 14 military vessels circled around Mavi Marmara.

- There were three large frigates, four ironclads and a host of small quiet boats for boarding. There was even a small submarine.

- I think the explanation for this massive assault on an unarmed convoy is that Israel wanted to practise pre-emptive strikes at sea, said Gardell.

The death toll could rise, he fears.

- Many were severely injured by the attack and were treated in such a way that the damage was aggravated. They were tied on deck, some had hoods over their heads in the worst Guantanamo style. Some were bleeding and one was shot in the back but got no help, he says.

"And there are people who are missing, and it worries me a lot. People were thrown, and threw themselves, into the sea in the attack"

According to Gardell, there is no doubt that the Israelis were aware that the convoy was peaceful and unarmed. The vessels were inspected in accordance with all applicable rules for passengers and cargo before they left Greece and Turkey.

"Everything was filmed. The Turkish aid organization IHH wanted to show that everything really went right. And I really want to emphasize that it completely was a peaceful, humanitarian intervention, which consisted of generators, prefabricated houses and schools, tröskmaskiner and more," he says.

After they are landed, the activists were placed in collection camps with prison discipline.

- We had to constantly remind the Israelis that we were not prisoners. We were accused of illegal entry into Israel, although we have been kidnapped out of international waters, said Gardell.

- Now we are tired. We mourn the dead and think of their relatives. We are dirty and have not been sleeping. We have no other clothes. The Israelis cut our clothes apart and smashed cameras and computers, says Mattias Gardell."

Here's the article in Swedish, at daily DN.se:
tiny.cc/urkzk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted on June 03, 2010 by Flashpoints

Huwaida Arraf

Early on Monday, Israeli commandos descended on a convoy of humanitarian aid vessels in international waters, dubbed the Freedom Flotilla. Filled with over 700 activists and 10,000 tons of aid destined for Gaza, the boats were captured and their passengers either killed or seized and taken to Israel’s port in Ashdod.

Huwaida Arraf was one of those kidnapped activists, on board a US-flagged vessel called Challenger 1. In the following interview from Wednesday, June 2nd, Arraf recounted her experience during the commando attack, in Israeli detention, and her brutal release. It was the first extended interview that any of the Flotilla activists gave. 

———————–

Dennis Bernstein: First of all, how are you doing? How are you feeling?

Huwaida Arraf: A little bruised, but no complaints. I’m okay, I’m just worried about the rest of my colleagues, especially those that are in hospitals who we don’t have complete information about. I’m definitely devastated about the loss of lives that was completely unnecessary.

DB: Do you have any information now about who died … and how many are wounded?

HA: Unfortunately not yet, and I just spoke to the lawyer that we have coordinating visitations to everybody that is still held, whether in a hospital or in jail here, and he said that they’re desperately trying to ascertain this information from the Israelis, and the Israelis are not being forthcoming — denying information when actually the lawyers go to the hospitals to try to check up on people to find out where they are, who they are, how they are doing. They [the lawyers] are not being allowed access.

DB: We’ve seen a lot from the Israelis, we’ve seen some edited tape, the story is that these commandos came under fire, under attack, that they were violently assaulted and thrown over the side of the ships, which left them no choice but to defend themselves. You were on one of these ships, you were with a lot of people who have seen a lot. Give us your best shot in terms of what you understand happened here.

HA: I was on board the Challenger 1, which was an American flagged vessel, the smallest travelling in the six vessel flotilla. We were supposed to have nine, but we had some problems with a couple of the other ones, and they were held back. We had suspected sabotage, and actually a statement made by the Israelis today confirms that it was sabotage. We weren’t saying anything before, but that’s not going to hold those vessels back, they will eventually travel to Gaza.

Anyway, that’s why we had six vessels instead of three more that we had planned to have. Approximately halfway between Cypress and Gaza, about 100 miles off the coast of Gaza, the Israeli navy started radioing the various vessels on the Flotilla, and we responded providing the information they had asked for as to who we were, what flag we were sailing under, where we came from, where we were going.

Then they started issuing threats and saying that we were navigating into a blockaded area and demanding that we turn around, saying that if we don’t turn around they would be prepared to use all necessary means in order to enforce the blockade.

We communicated to them over the VHF radio reiterating who we were, stressing that we were unarmed civilians carrying only humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip. We repeated this over and over again and let them know that we constitute no threat to them whatsoever so they should not use force against us, and they would not be justified in using any kind of force against these unarmed vessels.

A few hours later at about four or four-thirty in the morning their naval ships started approaching us. On our vessel we were planning to defend our ship to the best of our capability just using our bodies. We didn’t have any weapons or anything, so that when we heard they were coming we all deployed outside the vessel, at which point I could see the beginnings of the attack on the Turkish ship, the Marmara, because we were traveling almost side by side with it.

I saw the Israeli naval zodiacs approach that ship, I heard explosions which I took to be concussion grenades because they later used them on our ship also. These concussion grenades are sound bombs, and then shooting. I don’t know if it was rubber-coated bullets, live ammunition, or what kind, but there definitely was shooting coming from the Israelis toward the ship before they even boarded, and then I saw a helicopter overhead. That’s all really all that I was able to see before our vessel took off.

We had planned to stay together and help each other as much as possible, but even the captain of the Turkish ship told us to go on ahead and told us to get the news out that we were under attack, and that’s what we did. We tried to race ahead to prevent or at least delay the takeover of our ship until we could communicate to people what was happening. We tried to outrun the Israeli naval vessels that were chasing us, and we were only able to do that for about ten minutes.

Unfortunately during that time we were unable to get any information out because our satellites were jammed, and then our boat was taken over. Israeli commandos came up on the side of the boat, and like I said, we tried to defend basically by putting our bodies up against the railings where they were trying to jump on [to our vessel]. They used sound bombs that exploded on deck and they also used tazers to subdue people, for lack of a better word.

As much as we could we scrambled to prevent them from getting into the boat. They smashed the glass doors of the boat to get in, and beat people down that tried to get in their way. A young volunteer from Belgium, she had her face bloodied. There was at least one dog, also, that I saw on the ship as they were wrestling people down.

DB: Did you say a dog? Like an attack dog?

Huwaida Arraf

HA: Yes. To be fair, he was muzzled, but it was definitely an attack dog. And they proceeded to beat us down and to, and like I said, subdue us. At one point my head was slammed against the back end and a soldier was stepping and stomping on my head while they were tying my hands behind my back, and then they put a bag over my head and dragged me to a different area of the boat, so I didn’t see exactly how much more they did to my colleagues, but after about 15 minutes they had taken over the boat.

At that point, they started steering the boat to the Israeli port of Ashdod. They pulled us all into one room. After they had taken over the boat, they uncuffed us, and just had us all in one room. I should note that one of the first things they went after were all of our cameras, all of our phones, any kind of communication or recording devices.

As I was cuffed, they were going into my pockets to look for phones, and they did find a phone in my pocket, and then to keep it away from them for a while I did shove the phone down my pants thinking they wouldn’t go in, but they did hold me down and have a female officer come and actually reach down and get the phone.

They took all those communication devices, and then at a certain point, after they already had the boat taken over, and they gathered us in one room and took our cuffs off, they started video-taping, presumably to create their own version of the story. That’s what happened on our ship.

DB: Once you reached port, what happened?

HA: We reached Ashdod maybe three or four hours later. We protested getting off the ship—we told them we considered ourselves kidnapped from international waters, we were not headed towards Israel, we don’t want to be in Israel, we are not getting off the ship; at which point they started pulling and dragging people, lifting us up by hands and feet and carrying us off the ship.

I was the last one off the ship and I was separated from the others, so after that I didn’t see anybody else. I would assume all of us—but I was put through interrogation, patched from officer to officer for a few hours.

DB: What kind of questions were they asking you? What kind of information were they seeking?

HA: Basically what happened on the ship, my version of the story; but I didn’t answer any of their questions. I told them I wouldn’t answer any questions until I get to see a lawyer and/or a consul representative, and I repeated the same thing: “Your armed and masked men kidnapped me, brought me here—I don’t want to be here—and I need to see a lawyer before I answer any of your questions.” And indeed they were masked. They never took their masks off their faces for one second.

DB: They were all wearing masks as you were interrogated?

HA: Not the interrogators, but the commandos who jumped on our ship, they were all wearing masks. They were all heavily armed and wearing masks, and they never lifted their masks. After a few hours of interrogation, they decided to let me go.

As I also hold Israeli citizenship they can’t really deport me, they either have to prosecute me or let me go, and I’m guessing they didn’t want to draw any more attention to what they’ve done—a very bloody operation that didn’t have to happen, that led to the loss of lives, all to enforce an illegal and immoral and lethal blockade on the civilians living in the Gaza Strip.

They decided to let me go at a certain point, which I also protested because I didn’t want to leave my colleagues, and at the same time they had all my personal belongings, from my money to my phone, my watch—everything; and I asked them to at least give that back to me, and they refused and forced me into a police van, literally, by pulling me up by my hair and my hands and feet and beating me in order to get me into the van.

They drove me out of the port, stopped the car at some point—I’m not sure where because I was a little bit disoriented after being punched in the face and the jaw, and then they just opened the door and threw me out of the van.

DB: They just sort of left you on the side of the road?

HA: I don’t even know exactly where it was honestly. I think I must have passed out for a little bit, because the next thing I knew there was a medic taking me into an ambulance. I was taken to a hospital and checked and released just a few hours later.

DB: Where was the hospital? Where were you taken?

HA: The hospital is in Ashkelon, which is near Ashdod—near the city near Ashdod where the port was. I know they’re saying they were trying to be nice and non-violent, which is not true at all, and this is what happened to us on our boat. We didn’t put up any resistance, it was a small boat, there were only seventeen people on it; it was unnecessary use of violence; and this is all from personal experience.

I, thankfully, am okay and not complaining about any of my injuries, just concerned about my colleagues and saddened by the loss of life. We repeated to Israel and Israeli authorities over and over again: “We do not constitute any kind of threat to them, and therefore there is no reason to use force against us.” And yet they decided to attack us the way they did, again, which resulted in an unfortunate loss of life.

DB: Here’s what Prime Minister Netanyahu said Wednesday morning at a press conference, “This was a hate boat. These weren’t pacifists or peace activists.” He then went on to say “we will never apologize for defending ourselves. We are very proud of what our soldiers did.” Your response?

HA: He is proud of the soldiers’ attack on an unarmed ship and aid convoy, and killed people. What does that say about Netanyahu and all of Israel’s policies? These are the policies that we’re urging people to stand up against.

One of the things they’ve been saying is that “we’ve offered to take the cargo from the Flotilla and we’ll take it to Gaza ourselves,” is what Israel is saying, which is completely ingenuous because the cargo we were carrying is precisely the kind of cargo and materials that Israel has not let into Gaza for three years, basic things like reconstruction supplies, school supplies, toys for kids, water filtration systems.

These are all things that Israel denies the people of Gaza as part of their policy of collective punishment, which is what we’re trying to mobilize the world against. We wanted to get this cargo into Gaza, and Israel was not going to let it pass through Gaza, because if they did they would have been letting it through without us. At the same time, not only did we want to get this cargo to Gaza, but we wanted to challenge this policy that leaves Palestinians in need of humanitarian aid.

We are not interested in perpetuating an aid cycle because it is exactly what Israel has been doing. It has reduced Palestinians to a state where they need to live on handouts. Eighty percent of the population of Gaza is food aid dependent, so it’s not enough just to deliver aid or to campaign for an increase in the aid that reaches Gaza. We have to challenge the policy that leaves Palestinians in need of this aid; and the violence that Israel used against us this time will not deter us.

We are now ascertaining the condition of all of the people that survived and mourning the loss of lives, but everyone is determined to continue on this path, and it really is a growing movement of people that are ready to take action—not with guns or anything else, but by exposing the brutality, the policies that Israel has been perpetuating for so long.

DB: Huwaida, one of the most punishing parts of this from my perspective is that after you wound so many people and kill—we don’t know because these are all Israeli statistics and information because they’ve seized control of that—but eight, nine, ten people dead, dozens wounded, and they’re not even telling the families who is dead, who is wounded, where they are.

Any thoughts on what’s happening with these people, with the dead, to what’s happening? And your response to the refusal to give information about this by Israel?

HA: I don’t have information. We’re trying to get this information, but the very fact of their withholding this information from families, from people who care about each and every person that was on the Flotilla, is very cruel. They are denying access to lawyers and other people, denying access to the people that are in the hospitals so that we can get their condition and talk to their families and hopefully reassure their families.

I don’t see any reason at all from withholding this information. We need to be pressuring the consul representatives here to press Israel for this information because it really is cruel and unjustified to withhold this from the thousands of people around the world who are waiting to find out what has happened to the people they care about.

DB: Israeli officials are now admitting that the boats were too large to use peaceful means to stop them and turn them back and defend Israel, so I guess that’s an admission that they had planned to use violence. In one of the stories that I read three times by the Associated Press on Monday, was that they only had paint guns because they were unprepared and they thought the boats were full of pacifists, but then they found out they were against their wall with paint guns. Did you get shot by paint? Did anybody get killed by paint?

Huwaida Arraf on Al Jazeera

HA: No, at least not on our boats. I did see them carrying M16s. I’m not a stranger to these kinds of weapons, as I see them here in the West Bank all of the time, so it is not true when they say that they weren’t armed with these kinds of weapons, and I know we experienced their tazers, they definitely had them; they had batons with them, and they had M16s with them.

Now, they did not use live ammunition on our boat, but I don’t doubt that they used it on the other boats. To even think that the Israeli navy and soldiers would repel down into these large vessels without being armed with live ammunition or something more than paint guns is a little bit hard to believe.

DB: And finally, while this was all happening, a young student from Cooper Union in New York named Emily who was twenty-one, was shot in the face at a protest against what happened on the boats. I understand she lost an eye and is in critical condition. Were you surprised that they would shoot someone in the face like this—a young twenty-one year old? And do we have any information on her?

HA: I wish I could say I’m surprised but I’m not. This kind of violence is perpetuated almost on a daily basis, and we’re seeing more and more international volunteers being directly picked by Israeli fire. They always say that they use only non-lethal forms of crowd dispersal such as tear gas canisters.

When they shoot their tear gas from a high velocity weapon and aim it at people’s faces, then things can be lethal, and Palestinians and foreigners have been critically injured and killed by these kinds of weapons that Israel uses against unarmed demonstrators. I hope to be able to see Emily within the next day or two. I hear that she is doing okay. She has lost an eye. Her spirits go up and down. She’s also a little bit tired, but… I don’t know what to say.

It’s really hard to know what to say when you see such beautiful people being brutally attacked, losing limbs, losing lives, all to defend a policy that is illegal, immoral and lethal; and people are taking to the streets because our governments for so long have been impotent, have failed to hold Israel accountable, have failed to apply the pressure that is needed to end their apartheid and racist policies.

I’m very glad and proud to be part of the people’s movement that is attempting to change it, but also ashamed of the silence that has gone on too long around the world, and especially what some governments and people who call themselves world leaders have done in the name of democracy and human rights.

DB: Do you feel in any way intimidated? I understand that in this context, one of the boats that’s getting ready to head for Gaza has been named after another victim of the Israelis, Rachel Corrie. Does this movement continue or do you think of other directions to go?

HA: We will definitely continue in our efforts to break this illegal blockade and to continue campaigning until the occupation as a whole has ended, and then there is a system here in the Middle East, in what’s known as Israel/Palestine that treats people equally and does not discriminate against people based on race, religion or ethnicity. That’s the kind of future that we’re campaigning and fighting for, and we won’t rest until we realize that.

In terms of breaking the blockade on Gaza specifically, yes, there is the vessel Rachel Corrie which has been on her way down from Ireland. She was held back a little bit because of mechanical difficulties, which we now know that Israel has done everything but admit that they were involved in trying to sabotage these vessels; but we have overcome a lot of hurdles. We definitely intend to send that vessel to Gaza, however the timing, we haven’t agreed upon yet.

It is in the Mediterranean and ready to go, however we are adjusting right now based on the violence that Israel used against the Flotilla itself—what kind of extra preparations and campaigning and political guarantees that we should try to get before sending the Rachel Corrie, but we are feeling a lot of support and we are encouraged by that, that now world leaders are speaking up and people are paying attention—the kind of attention that they should have been paying a long time ago, not necessarily to our boats and what we are doing, but to the unjustness of the blockade on Gaza.

There are more and more voices calling now for the lifting of the blockade on Gaza, and that’s what we need to see, actually more than just calling, but putting concrete pressure on Israel to end the illegal blockade.