ASHDOD (Israel) - NAVAL commandos can be seen rappelling down from helicopters then pointing assault rifles, in some of the dramatic footage of Israel's deadly pre-dawn raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla on Monday.
Israel says the troops returned fire after they were attacked with live rounds, knives and clubs, but the organisers of the Gaza blockade busting bid insist the soldiers started shooting the moment they hit the deck. 'They fired directly into the crowd of civilians asleep,' the Free Gaza Movement said.
Asleep my a$$. When this paragraph unravels, it's over and Israel can stop worrying about it.
Only limited footage of the incident has been broadcast as communications with the six ships participating in the flotilla appeared to have been scrambled during the operation some reports say left 19 passengers dead and 36 wounded.
Several soldiers also were reported to have been wounded. In images posted on the Internet and broadcast on several television stations including the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera network, Bandaged men can be seen lying on stretchers in the shaky images that show complete chaos aboard what appears to be the Turkish ship, Mavi Marmara. An Al-Jazeera correspondent on board the ship said the Israeli soldiers continued shooting even though a white flag of surrender had been raised. He said hundreds of Israeli troops attacked the ships and that the captain was among those wounded.
Indications are that most, if not all of those killed were aboard the Marmara, which carried most of more than 700 pro-Palestinian activists who hoped to make their way towards the Gaza Strip. Military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi said the situation aboard the large ferry, owned by the IHH Islamic charity, was different from that on the other five ships. 'There was extreme violence from the moment that our forces reached the ship, it was premeditated and included weapons, iron bars, knives and at a certain stage firearms, perhaps in some cases weapons that were snatched from soldiers,' he said. A Greek vessel was also among those that came under attack. 'There was an attack with live bullets against the Greek boat Sfendoni and the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, with helicopters and inflatable boats,' a Greek non-governmental organisation said in a statement.
Greta Berlin said the last message received before the raid said: 'All is calm, the Israeli warships are on our bow, let's sleep.' Then, a message posted on Twitter by the pro-Palestinian activists said the Israeli military had made contact. 'Intervention is imminent,' a message from aboard the Challenger 1 passenger vessel said. Next came news from the Mavi Marmara, reporting two people were killed. Later reports indicated that 19 activists had died. |