Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
Израиль создаст "пункт досмотра" судов на море
В соответствии с разработанной правительством инициативой, в порту Ашдода будут размещены международные инспекторы ООН
Из товаров, запрещенных к ввозу, такие вещи, как камуфляжная ткань, строительные материалы, цемент и строительная арматура
В четверг вечером глава правительства Биньямин Нетаниягу собрал так называемый "форум семи министров" для обсуждения действий Израиля в отношении судна "Рейчел Корри", которое организаторы акции "Free Gaza" отправили из Ирландии на очередной "прорыв блокады".
Кроме того, министры обсудили возможные пути смягчения блокады – как того требует международное сообщество, – при этом Израиль не готов поступиться своей безопасностью. В соответствии с разработанной правительством инициативой, в порту Ашдода будут размещены международные инспекторы ООН, которые будут досматривать перевозящие товары для сектора Газы суда в море, после чего разрешенные грузы будут отправляться в Газу.
Канцелярия главы правительства опубликовала заявление, в котором указано, что Израиль не позволит доставку в сектор Газы строительных материалов, используемых террористами для строительства бункеров, а также веществ и материалов, которые могут быть применены для создания ракет.
В настоящий момент продолжается досмотр и классификация грузов, доставляемых в сектор Газы судами флотилии "Free Gaza": израильские власти загрузили уже 30 грузовых автомобилей разрешенными товарами, такими как одежда, одеяла, матрасы, детская мебель, медицинское оборудование, инвалидные коляски, осветительное оборудование, больничные кровати.
С судов "Free Gaza" были сняты также лекарства, предназначенные для сектора Газы: вместе с тем, израильские власти отмечают, что срок годности значительного количества медицинских препаратов истек, как минимум, год назад.
Из товаров, запрещенных к ввозу, такие вещи, как камуфляжная ткань, строительные материалы, цемент и строительная арматура. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
Задержание судна "Рэйчел Корри". 5 июня 2010 года
Переговоры с экипажем судна "Рэйчел Корри". 5 июня 2010 года
Демонстрация исламистов в Малайзии
Встреча пассажиров судна "Рэйчел Корри". Ашдод, 5 июня 2010 года
Руководство движения "Free Gaza", спонсоры турецкого фонда IHH и лидеры различных группировок, ассоциированных с этими организациями, могут быть довольны результатами последних попыток прорыва морской блокады сектора Газы. Провокация удалась: кровопролитие на борту турецкого теплохода "Мави Мармара" и субботний рейд ирландского судна "Рэйчел Корри" вызвали лавину антиизраильских акций по всему миру.
Пример девяти "шахидов Мармары" воодушевил множество фанатиков-исламистов, которые заявляют о готовности ценой своих жизней прорывать блокаду Газы. Запись добровольцев идет в Турции, Алжире, Египте, Марокко, Малайзии, Ливане и других мусульманских странах. Заявляют о намерении присоединиться к новым "походам на Газу" и активисты радикальных европейских организаций.
Озабоченность израильских властей вызывают сообщения о намерении премьер-министра Турции Реджепа Тайипа Эрдогана лично принять участие в прорыве блокады сектора Газы и предоставить корабли турецких военно-морских сил для сопровождения "гуманитарных миссий" до побережья Газы. О намерениях главы правительства Турции в минувшие выходные писали ливанская газета "Аль-Мустакбаль" и саудовская "Аль-Хайят", но официального подтверждения эта информация пока не получила.
Эрдоган, как и другие государственные лидеры, имеет возможность побывать в Газе, договорившись о визите с египетскими или израильскими властями. Использование военно-морского флота Турции для сопровождения флотилий "Free Gaza" представляется проблематичным, так как Турция является членом NATO и должна будет согласовывать такого рода решения с руководством Северо-атлантического альянса.
Между тем, "Европейское движение за снятие блокады с сектора Газы" оповестило, что оно начинает готовить "Флотилию свободы-2", в которую войдет в два раза больше судов, чем в первую. Известно, что пропалестинские организации в Ливане собирают средства на снаряжение собственного судна для прорыва блокады сектора Газы, которое должно выйти из порта в следующие выходные. Ливанская миссия готовится при участии "Движения за Освобождение Палестины" и международной организации "Журналисты без границ".
Армия обороны Израиля учтет опыт перехвата подобных флотилий. В заявлениях военных звучат слова о том, что будут тщательно изучены ошибки, допущенные при задержании судна "Мави Мармара". Но очевидно, что и активисты пропалестинских организаций могут изменить тактику, подготовив новые сценарии для провокаций.
Следует признать, что экипаж и пассажиры судна "Рэйчел Корри" в минувшую субботу продемонстрировали готовность пропалестинских активистов из Европы действовать ненасильственными методами. Все активисты, находившиеся на борту этого судна были доставлены из морского порта Ашдод в аэропорт имени Бен-Гуриона и вскоре покинут территорию Израиля.
На этом фоне все чаще раздаются голоса о необходимости смягчения условий блокады сектора Газы. В частности, по мнению многих израильских политиков, следует разрешить поставку в Газу строительных материалов, которые не могут быть использованы для сооружения укрепленных бункеров. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article7144753.ece Operation calamity
The Israeli commandos who stormed a flotilla of aid ships were expecting a cakewalk – but then the bullets began to fly
IDF soldiers being set upon by passengers of the Marmara Israeli Commandos Storm Convoy of Ships Carrying Aid
Video footage, shot with a night-vision camera and released by the Irsaelis, shows the commando attack on the aid ship
Uzi Mahnaimi in Tel Aviv and Gareth Jenkins in Istanbul
Istanbul’s face has changed radically over the millennia — Greek, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Turk — but it remains one of the world’s great cities, home to a cosmopolitan and enlightened elite. There is also another Istanbul, however, one that last week lured Israel into scoring a spectacularly violent own goal and advanced the cause of militant Islam.
In the heart of the city, not far from the famous Blue Mosque and the shopping district of Nisantasi, which attracts visitors from western Europe, is Fatih, a fundamentalist stronghold where westerners are treated with suspicion and the clothing and customs speak of the Middle East.
For most of the members of Turkey’s secular middle class, who spend their lives in the air-conditioned offices and apartments, glitzy shopping centres, cafes and bars of the city’s upmarket neighbourhoods, Fatih’s narrow streets and chador-clad women could just as well be in a foreign country. Few have visited Fatih and most would laugh at the thought of it.
But it is from Fatih that Turkey’s most Islamist radical groups and organisations co-ordinate their activities and publish books and magazines extolling the virtues of a strict Islamic lifestyle — and, in many cases, openly calling on their young male readers to support the global jihad against the West.
Fatih is the headquarters of Insan Hak ve Hurriyetleri (the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief, or IHH) — a name that has gone round the world since Israeli commandos killed at least nine of its activists early last Monday on a boat carrying relief supplies for Gaza.
IHH draws many of its members not just from Fatih but also from the shanty towns that encircle the sprawling city of 14m. Many are migrants from the countryside who have brought with them the conservative Islamic values of rural Anatolia.
Last week’s deadly confrontation in the eastern Mediterranean pitted a band of these tough young men — spoiling for a fight, in the opinion of one non-Turk who was on the boat — against a unit from Israel’s military elite that had no idea what it was taking on. Israeli special forces marines — who thought the task was beneath them because they had been told to cow the Turks with paintball guns — suddenly feared for their lives and started firing real bullets.
How could such a catastrophic miscalculation occur? And what really happened when Israel took on the Mavi Marmara as it cruised towards Gaza? Some of the accounts are partisan, lurid and wildly contradictory, but by the end of the week a plausible narrative was beginning to emerge.
FLOTILLA 13, Israel’s SBS-style navy frogmen, are respected as among the best of the world’s special forces. Last year the deputy commander of their frogman school, a captain, was sent on a daring operation in the eastern Mediterranean.
Sailing on a millionaire’s yacht to disguise their activity, he and his men crossed into Syrian waters just after dark, not far from the port of Tartus. Next morning they reached their operational location about a mile from a line of magnificent villas belonging to the Syrian elite.
Several commandos were sunbathing on deck, posing as tourists, when the spotters hidden on board detected a movement in the garden of one of the villas. A specialist sniper, armed with a long-range gun equipped with a silencer, was called to the upper deck.
The middle-aged Syrian general was sunbathing, fearless, in his back garden. His unsuspecting bodyguards controlled the front garden and the entrance. A single bullet was fired. No sound was heard. The general, in charge of arms sales to Hezbollah and liaison officer to North Korea, slumped back.
Before his family discovered that he was dead and not asleep, the yacht slipped into international waters. President Bashar al-Assad of Syria heard the bad news over the telephone while visiting Iran. Just before dawn, the yacht reached Flotilla 13’s base near a beautiful bay and impressive crusader castle in northern Israel. It was returned to its Israeli owner and the captain awaited his next mission.
Three weeks ago, when he was called to the briefing room, he expected another daring operation, perhaps a night-time underwater assignment to one of the Iranian ports. But when the bald-headed Flotilla 13 commander introduced the assignment, the captain was flummoxed. Some peace activists were planning to break Israel’s three-year-old blockade of Gaza with a flotilla of small ships carrying food aid, building materials and other supplies. Flotilla 13’s mission was to stop them. He was to command one of the forces boarding the largest ship, the Turkish Mavi Marmara.
What kind of mission is this, he asked, to board a passenger ship? Someone must have got it wrong, he suggested, they were not the coastguard but the most highly trained soldiers in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Send the police instead. His commander was adamant. These were the orders from the big guys.
Flotilla 13 is a small brigade with heavy-duty missions. But as from three weeks ago, all cross-border operations were called off and everyone was focused on stopping the “peace flotilla”.
“Intelligence was good,” the captain said last week during a debriefing. “We knew about all ships, their names and even specific information about some of the militants on board.”
They were told to prepare for minor resistance from passengers. Paint guns and Taser-type weapons, which they had never used, would suffice.
Because the operation was unprecedented for the commandos, they underwent several strange briefings. A psychologist told them how to deal with civilians. A lawyer explained to the stunned commandos the legal aspects of their operation. Then came a man from the foreign ministry in a three-piece suit and tie. The commandos, some of them still in swimming gear and wetsuits, gave him a friendly welcome. He was followed by the more familiar intelligence briefing and technical elements.
The captain and his men held a rehearsal. Fifty civilians were loaded onto ships and the commandos “took over”. One of them recalled: “It was a nice day out in the Mediterranean.”
The real thing began last Sunday evening. Those assigned to helicopters arrived at an air force base. Those who would be in the “Morenas” — the frogmen’s special high-speed boats — mustered at Ashdod navy base.
OUT at sea four small boats carrying international peace activists who had set out from Cyprus had a rendezvous with the Mavi Marmara, which had set sail from southern Turkey. It was under the control of the IHH, which Israel regards with deep suspicion as an associate of Hamas, the Palestinian militants in Gaza. But there were non-Turks among about 600 people on board, including Sarah Colborne, director of campaigns and operations at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign in London.
“We had assembled all the boats in international waters,” she said on her return to Britain last week. “At 11pm that night, Israeli naval boats were detected on the radar and sighted and a decision was made to move further back into international waters.
“We managed to get some broadcasts out that we were on a humanitarian mission, that the United Nations had called for ships to be sent with humanitarian aid to break the blockade on Gaza, that we were simply undertaking that goal. An emergency medical room was assembled and we were all told to put lifejackets on to prepare for any attack.”
Another Briton, Theresa McDermott, an Edinburgh postal worker and member of the Free Gaza Movement, was alongside the Mavi Marmara in the fleet’s smallest boat, Challenger 1.
“The skies were clear and there was a full moon. Their boats had the lights on, so on either side of us we could see two large vessels on the horizon. They were shadowing us all the way, and one of the photographers on board got a picture of a military frigate. They followed us through the night and most people went to sleep. I was up on the top deck keeping watch and trying to make sure they weren’t sneaking up on us.
“At 2am we realised one of their boats had come right up the back of the flotilla, but then it dropped off again. They were trying to make us feel nervous. It went very quiet, then at 4am we heard people starting their morning prayers on the Mavi Marmara. We were right next to them so we could hear the prayer call. It was still dark, then all of a sudden we saw smaller lights across to starboard and we knew the Israelis had dropped the smaller boats, carrier craft, into the water.
“They went for the Mavi Marmara first, with Zodiac commando boats that sliced through the flotilla. The Israelis started firing smoke bombs and sound grenades onto the Mavi Marmara. We heard the cracks of gunfire and I realised they were much more forceful than when they have taken us off boats before. They were coming really hard.”
ISRAEL’S prime minister, Binyamin (Bibi) Netanyahu, spent last weekend in Canada, where he was supposed to be preparing for a meeting on Tuesday with Barack Obama. On Sunday all thoughts of it were set aside and a full operations room was established to let him control the events about to take place off Gaza.
The first call on his secure line — codename Mountain Rose — was put through late on Sunday to Ehud Barak, the Israeli defence minister, sitting in the operations bunker at IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The relationship between Bibi and Ehud goes back more than 40 years. Barak was a commander of Israel’s equivalent of the SAS and Bibi was one of his young officers. In 1972 they were among the commandos who stormed a hijacked Sabena jet at Tel Aviv airport. Bibi was injured by a bullet in his hand. Barak went untouched. Ever since, Netanyahu has regarded him as his mentor.
After they went into politics, Netanyahu became leader of Likud and Barak leader of the Labour party. But as prime minister in a coalition government, the rightwinger rarely opposes his old commander’s recommendations. “Both of them are talking in codes and language from their days with the special forces that no one can understand,” complained a cabinet minister recently.
Once again they had kept the government out of the loop about the peace flotilla. The seven members of the inner cabinet, known in Israel as the “Septet”, had been told individually of the general idea to storm the ships but were given no details.
Netanyahu now wanted to know if all military preparations were going well. Barak assured him everything was under control. It was only then that Netanyahu made telephone calls to world leaders to explain the delicate situation. David Cameron took his call at 10pm London time.
In Israel the frogmen got into their Black Hawk helicopters. “Normally, before an operation, we sit in the choppers silent like the grave. We are tense and worried,” said one of them later. “This time we were in high spirits, talking and cracking jokes.”
Another soldier gave his account: “You climb in according to your prepared order. I was the sixth from the left-hand side. One before last. We had a pleasant night flight of about 40 minutes. Once arrived, I took the rope and jumped — about 20 metres of descent.”
It was 4.10am Monday Israeli time. Vice-Admiral Eli Marom, the Israeli navy commander, was in one of the Morenas speedboats only 50 yards from the Mavi Marmara. He took out his handgun and shot three times in the air. Operation Sky Winds had begun.
Three Israeli commandos landed on the upper deck of the Mavi Marmara where young Turks “started resisting naturally ... like anyone who feels his life is threatened”, said Abdul Razzaq Maqri, a former Algerian parliamentarian who was watching on the ship.
The first Israeli officer was badly beaten and lost consciousness. The next two were beaten, tied up and hustled away to a lower deck. One of the Israelis said later: “Once I’d landed on the upper deck I noticed two terrorists beating one of our guys with a metal bar. I jumped on them, pushing them aside, but immediately they turned on me and began beating me.”
Their captain and the rest of his force, unaware of the situation, were still landing on the upper deck one after another and receiving the same treatment. The first Israeli to understand the situation was a young soldier monitoring live images from the scene. “They are smashing the fighters,” he was heard shouting. “They’re giving them hell.”
An officer in the command room asked: “Who is smashing whom?”
“The Arabs ... the terrorists ... these people ... they are giving hell to the fighters.” He paused. “They threw him [a soldier] from the upper deck!”
On his speedboat, Marom heard over the communications system the tense voice of one of his commando officers on board: “They are using real arms, I repeat, they are using real arms. Request permission to use handguns.”
In Tel Aviv, Barak was watching events live on a monitor and heard the request. Next to him was Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, the commander of the IDF. Barak whispered: finish this at once. Netanyahu, calling from Canada, was ignored.
This was the moment when the commandos “switched the hard disk”, as one of them described it, stopped trying to be policemen and slipped the leash. Reports that one soldier, a staff sergeant, killed six Turks with his handgun have been denied by the IDF. But several militants from the IHH were soon dead on the deck.
Maqri remembers a shot ringing out and a fellow Algerian activist crumpling, bleeding from an eye. Colborne, who had been woken from a brief sleep by the sound of the attack and rushed to the top deck, saw the first fatality: “He was shot in the head. I saw him. He was obviously in a very bad way and he subsequently died. There were bullets flying all over the place when I was on the top deck and I took the decision to go downstairs.
“I couldn’t quite believe they were doing what they were doing. There was live ammunition flying around and I could hear the sounds of the bullets flying and the whir of the helicopter blades as people were dropped down onto the roof. What I saw was guns being used by the Israelis on unarmed civilians.”
The Israeli commandos stormed the control room of the ship. “The door was closed and I opened it with a strong kick,” said their captain. “The skipper was standing there talking to me, I think in Turkish. I ordered him in English to turn off the engine. He refused. I put the handgun to his throat. He got the hint. The engine was switched off. I informed the command that we controlled the ship.”
It was only then that Barak asked to be connected to Netanyahu. All under control, he said, in the slow charismatic voice that Netanyahu adores so much from their days of cross-border operations. Only a minute later Barak regretted making his report. Marom was on the line now. Three soldiers are missing, he told Barak. We’re searching for them.
Hamas has held an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, hostage for four years and his plight has turned Israel upside down. Did three of Barak’s best men face another agonising hostage situation? As usual, under stress, he was calm. “Freezing ice is in his veins, not blood,” said one of his former subordinates, trying to describe his behaviour during operations.
On board the Mavi Marmara, commandos rushed the lower decks to search for their friends. Andre Abu-Khalil, an Al-Jazeera TV cameraman, said the Turks “took the wounded Israeli soldiers to the lower decks. Twenty Turks made a human shield to prevent the Israeli soldiers from approaching. They knocked on the metal walls to warn them not to advance.
“Then, using a loudspeaker, they said to the Israelis that the soldiers would be freed only after the IDF provided medical help to the wounded people.”
The Israelis went on searching, said Abu-Khalil. “It took about 10 minutes till the Israeli soldiers opened fire. One of the people got a bullet in his head; the other was shot in his neck.”
The commandos stormed the machine room, killing militants guarding it, and found a wounded soldier chained to one of the pipes. The two others had managed to escape, jumping from a porthole into the sea. Marom called Barak: all soldiers found. There were nine civilians dead.
“At 5.15am we started broadcasting over the Tannoy for help to evacuate the critically injured,” said Colborne. The civilians dragged the casualties to an inner hall and closed the door behind them.
One of them, Hanin Zuabi, an Arab Israeli MP, spoke to one of the soldiers in Hebrew. “She asked me to take care of their injured people. I told her, ‘I’m not willing to get in there as I’m not sure they don’t have weapons, but we will take care of the wounded. Please, stay at the door and make sure only wounded will get out’.”
The Israelis say that during an initial search of the ship they found weapons, gas masks, ceramic flak jackets, written instructions and thousands of dollars in cash. “It was clear that they were very well prepared for resistance,” said one defence source.
Israeli intelligence is adamant that the IHH is a fundamentalist group affiliated with Hamas and Al-Qaeda. Hamas was an Islamic humanitarian organisation that developed a military wing. Israeli security suspects the IHH of following the same path.
One of the western activists on board said anonymously later that some young Turks had clearly been spoiling for a fight. But the ages of the dead — a 19-year-old, three men in their thirties, two in their forties, a 54-year-old and a 60-year-old — indicate that the clash was not confined to young militants. Most were killed in classic special forces style by several shots to the head and torso.
Other vessels in the peace flotilla had been overcome with much less violence — although some on board reported being beaten and Tasered.
On one of them, the Sofia, was Henning Mankell, the Swedish thriller writer. He felt that the masked and armed Israelis who took it over were ashamed of what they were doing. At least two of them were women.
He said: “I think in one way the soldiers were very disciplined, but if you looked at the eyes of the women they were not terrified but they looked as if they felt really like, shit — what the hell am I doing here?
“We asked why they did it and they said we had weapons aboard. We said we don’t have any weapons so they made a search of the ship. They came up with a razor and a little knife that you use to open boxes and they said they had found weapons. We laughed at this point. What else could you do.”
The boats in the flotilla were taken to Ashdod where agents of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service, began to interrogate what they suspected was a hard core of IHH militants from the Mavi Marmara before releasing everyone under international pressure.
In Canada, Netanyahu cut short his trip and returned to Israel, where he faced unprecedented criticism. Western governments lined up to condemn the operation and security experts asked why the Israeli intelligence service had not infiltrated the Turks or sabotaged the Mavi Marmara.
It was suspected of sabotaging at least two of the smaller vessels, which suffered steering difficulties. One of them, the Irish-sponsored Rachel Corrie, with Mairead Maguire, the Nobel peace prize laureate, on board, stayed behind for repairs and did not approach Gaza until yesterday morning. It was stopped without violence by an Israeli boarding party.
Israel has rejected much of the criticism of Operation Sky Winds, but the Israeli defence establishment, long friendly with the Turkish military, is extremely worried. Turkey’s government, itself religiously based, has aligned itself with public anger. Reports to the Israeli defence ministry indicated that it might close down an Israeli intelligence station based on Turkish soil, not far from the Iranian border.
“If that happens,” said a well-informed Israeli source, “Israel will lose its ears and nose, which watch and sniff the Iranians’ back garden.”
It would mean that Israel’s botched Gaza blockade had weakened its defences against the much graver threat of an Iranian nuclear bomb.
Additional reporting: Jamie McGinnes and Jon Swain _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
Зарегистрирован: 06.03.2005 Сообщения: 12000 Откуда: Обер-группен-доцент, ст. руководитель группы скоростных свингеров, он же Забашлевич Оцаат Поэлевич
Six of the nine activists killed in Monday’s raid on an aid convoy were shot by a single Israeli commando who is now being considered for a medal of valour.
Israeli reports of the likely award for the soldier — credited with saving his injured comrades as passengers attacked them with clubs, knives and even the guns they had captured from the commandos — are expected to inflame the row with Turkey over the attack on the flotilla.
Mustafa Akyol, a prominent political writer, described the move as an “insult and a provocation to Turkey”. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, vented his anger yesterday by quoting from the Bible.
“I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Did you not understand .... I say in Hebrew: ‘Lo Tirtzakh’,” Mr Erdogan said.
Fresh details of the raid, which sparked accusations of piracy and state terrorism, and wrecked Israel’s strategic partnership with Turkey, emerged yesterday. Autopsies in Turkey claim to show that most of the victims were shot at close range. Dr Haluk Ince, the director of Istanbul’s Medical Examination Institute, said that five of the victims died of bullet wounds to the head.
Reports suggest that passengers had been dragging three captured commandos into the hold of the ship when the shooting broke out. However, a British passenger who survived the pre-dawn encounter in international waters told The Times that some of the more peaceful activists on board had tried to protect captured Israeli soldiers.
The Israeli commando who killed six of the passengers on Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ferry owned by the IHH charity, told The Jerusalem Post that he had been the last of 15 soldiers to abseil down the rope from a helicopter on to the ship.
Identified for security reasons only as Staff Sergeant S, he said that, contrary to initial Israeli army reports, the shooting had started within minutes as he and his comrades were set upon by a “mob of mercenaries”.
As he landed on the top deck, he said he saw three of his superior officers who had landed ahead of him lying injured, one with a bullet wound to the stomach, another shot in the knee and the third beaten unconscious. He formed his men around the wounded, drew his 9mm Glock pistol and opened fire on passengers who he says had fired at the boarding party with guns captured from the first soldiers to land.
“When I hit the deck, I was immediately attacked by people with bats, metal pipes and axes,” he said. “These were without a doubt terrorists. I could see the murderous rage in their eyes and that they were coming to kill us.” He said he saw one of the passengers holding a seized pistol to another Israeli commando’s head.
British and American activists who were on the ship told a different story, accusing the Israelis of firing live rounds from the boats surrounding the ship, the roof where the Israelis had landed, and the helicopter hovering above. They said women went below deck to help in a medical area set up before the attack, and the captured Israeli soldiers were taken down there.
The Turkish Haberturk newspaper ran pictures yesterday that show them being treated on the boat. “They were treated almost immediately,” said Fatima Mohammadi, an American. “They were then released and went back to Israel in bandages.”
She said she was the only woman on the top deck when the firing began. “They started with rubber bullets and stun grenades and then it switched at some point. The cameraman next to me was shot once with a rubber bullet and once with live fire from one of the boats. Blood was pouring out as I worked on his arm.”
Alexandra Lort-Phillips, a 37-year-old activist from Hackney, East London, described seeing an Israeli soldier taken down into the stairwell below the deck where the soldiers landed.
“I went down the stairwell and there was a massive crowd of people and lots of shouting,” she told The Times. “There was a sense of ‘My god, we’ve got an Israeli soldier’. I don’t think we really knew what we were going to do. I saw a gun being taken. His gun belt was removed and someone ran past me with the weapon and disappeared. They could have shot him but didn’t.”
A wounded Turkish passenger, Muhyittin Yildirim, said: “Some Israeli soldiers were rendered ineffective. Our friends got their weapons. If they had a bad intention, they would have used the weapons against the soldiers but they threw them to the sea.” He said people resisted “as a precaution” because they did not trust the soldiers.
Ms Lort-Phillips said about 25 people gathered around a soldier as he was held by his legs and stripped to his underwear. “The women who were there were shouting ‘Don’t hurt him’.”
She denied he was beaten, but said: “There were obviously some guys there who were extremely agitated by the situation. It is like you’d expect when there’s a fight between men.”
Tauqir Sharif, 23, from East London, said that gunfire was coming from the helicopter overhead. “People were just trying to hide. Everyone was running, screaming and shouting. They were using all different kinds of weapons — rubber bullets, paint-ball bullets,” he said of the Israelis.
A Palestinian-born Briton, Osama Qashoo, described how a photographer standing next to him was shot as he raised his camera. “It was raining with live ammunition,” he said. “I put my hand on the back of his head and tried to lift him. Then I felt my hand was wet. His brain was in my hand. I couldn’t stop it.” _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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“On the night of the raid we thought that we should maybe have a guard on the ship, even though we were some hours away from the territorial waters of Israel. I was on patrol between midnight and 3am.
“At 4am I went to sleep; 15 minutes later people rushed in saying, ‘Hey, they are attacking the big ferry [the Mavi Marmara]’. This was when we heard the shooting. At the beginning we didn’t know what was happening but gradually we understood: sooner or later they will come for us, too. And one hour later, they came.
“When we saw the commandos coming in their inflatable boats, with masks, we all went up to the bridge. When they boarded the ship we were there with our hands behind our heads.
“Even though we didn’t do anything some of the soldiers were brutal. One member of the crew, an old man, maybe a little slow, was shot in the arm with an electric gun. This is very painful and he fell to the ground.
“We were on the ship for another 11 hours, not allowed to move around except to go to the toilet at certain times, with no food, just water and some biscuits.
“Once we were in Israel I was taken to see a policeman. I asked him, ‘What am I accused of?’
“He told me, ‘We charge you with entering Israel illegally.’
“I replied, ‘But you brought me here!’ But there was no discussion. I was sent to a prison to be deported; 30 hours later I was taken to the airport. Only then did I learn that nine people were dead. The Israelis had jammed our communications before boarding our ship.
“At sea and on land the soldiers used a lot of violence. The Israelis were taking photos to put into everyone’s file. In the case of one man, however, they wanted his fingerprints, too. When he objected — ‘No, no, I have not done anything’ — they started beating him with their fists, telling him, ‘Give us that fingerprint!’
“The fact that the Israelis attacked us in international waters surprised us. This was an act of pure piracy. And taking our ships to Israel was kidnapping.
“For me it is still very difficult to understand: why did they choose to do this? If they really wanted to stop us, why did they not wait until we were close to their territorial waters, and say ‘You can’t go any further’? They could have very quickly taken out the rudder and the propeller of our ship. We would have been stuck. No one would have been hurt.
“The Israelis knew perfectly well I was on board. And they had orders — ‘Don’t hurt that man, he is too famous’, all that nonsense. I was not very afraid for myself.
“I knew the worst could have happened to me during that journey. I even could have been killed. I refuse to look upon myself as a sort of hero. The heroic people are the Palestinians. Not us. They have to deal with this sort of s*** every day.” _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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Freed British activists arrived in Istanbul early yesterday to a heroes’ welcome, as up to 20,000 people gathered for the funerals of those killed in Israel’s raid on an aid ship.
The bodies of eight Turks and a Turkish-born American — shot dead in Monday’s attack on the Mavi Marmara — were flown into Atatürk airport at about 3am along with 520 passengers from the ship.
Sarah Colborne, 43, of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, and one of 34 Britons, told The Times: “Everyone’s just in shock. It was a massacre that took place there.”
Ms Colborne, from Hackney, East London, later flew back to Britain. Still wearing her prison outfit she described the run-up to the raid. “Israeli boats were detected on the radar at 11pm on Sunday evening,” she said in London. “The decision was made to move farther back into international waters. An emergency medical room was assembled and we put our lifejackets on.
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“I went to sleep at 2am and woke up again at 4.10am. I went up on to the deck and saw boats and dinghies, bristling with guns and military, speeding towards the ship. There were helicopters above us, and gas and sound bombs were being used.
“There were then gunshots and the first passenger was fatally wounded. He was brought to the back of the deck but he’d been shot in the head.”
Ms Colborne said that the captain then announced that live ammunition was being used, and that the passengers should stop resisting. At 5.15am he broadcast a request for help with the critically injured, and at 7am the Israelis started letting the wounded off.
“Then four dead bodies were laid out on the floor and all the passengers were moved out. We were cuffed with cable ties, our phones were removed and we were made to sit or kneel on the deck in the hot sun.
“After some hours we were moved back to the saloon, and we left the boat some time between 10am and 10.30am.” Ms Colborne and the others were then taken to Ashdod in Israel, and then Beersheba prison, where they remained until being deported.
Hundreds turned up at Istanbul airport to cheer the activists and burn Israeli flags. Some of the Britons immediately looked for flights home, while others stayed in the city at the expense of Turkish Airlines, Istanbul’s city council, and the Islamic IHH charity, which owned the ship. The group has come under scrutiny over its alleged links with militant organisations.
Alexandra Lort-Phillips, 37, also from Hackney, stayed on to attend the funerals and offer help to the charity.She said that no one aboard had expected the bloodbath. “In my mind, before, I thought one person might get killed if there was a really bad fight. I had no concept that live ammunition would be fired by forces normally used against resistance fighters,” she said.
Yesterday afternoon vast crowds who flocked to Istanbul’s Fatih Mosque to mark the activists’ funerals waved Turkish and Palestinian flags and chanted: “Damn Israel. Israel is the Angel of Death.”
Ms Lort-Phillips refused to blame the Israeli commandos for the killings. “They got on board the ship and behaved like soldiers behave. It’s not their fault that they were put in that situation by someone in charge of military strategy,” she said.
The US State Department said that it was investigating the circumstances of the American’s death, though a spokesman said that the FBI would not be involved in the inquiry. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that he has rejected a proposal raised by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who suggested the establishment of an international commission of inquiry into the raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla a week ago.
Nine Turkish activists were killed last Monday when Israeli navy commandos raided a Gaza-bound aid ship carrying hundreds of peace activists, who were caught on film attacking the soldiers as they boarded the ship. The ship, the Mavi Marmara, was a part of flotilla aiming to bring aid to Gaza despite a three-year Israeli blockade. The event has sparked a wave of global criticism against Israel, and spawned countless calls to investigate the tragic event.
The head of the committee would be former New Zealand prime minister Geoffrey Palmer, an expert on maritime law. Committee members would include representatives from the United States, Turkey and Israel.
Netanyahu briefed his cabinet ministers on the overnight conversation between Ban and himself, telling them that "I told him that the investigation of the facts must be carried out responsibly and objectively."
"We need to consider the issue carefully and level-headedly, while maintaining Israel's national interests as well as those of the Israel Defense Forces," he continued.
The prime minister told Ban that some of the passengers aboard the Marmara were members of an extremist terror-backing Turkish organization. He stressed that any investigation into the event should determine who organized these extremists, who funded them and supplied them with equipment, and how they ended up on the ship.
Netanyahu also discussed the Israeli blockade on Gaza, saying that discussions surrounding the easing of the blockade had begun before the flotilla ever set sail. "Our desire is to facilitate the transfer of civilian and humanitarian goods to the civilian population, while preventing the transfer of weapons and warfare materials." He added that "the provocative flotilla will not stop us from discussing this, and we are considering proposals on the topic made by friendly nations."
The prime minister further told the cabinet that he spoke with U.S. Vice President Joe Biden over the weekend as well as the prime ministers of Greece and Bulgaria. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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Hurriyet newspaper publishes photos of Israeli Commando soldiers bruised, bleeding after being beaten by activists aboard Gaza-bound Marmara aid vessel. Report says army erased photos, but they were reproduced. IDF: Images prove ship was carrying mercenaries
Ynet
The Turkish Hurriyet daily has published photos of Israeli Commando soldiers being beaten by passengers aboard the Turkish-owned Marmara vessel, which took part in the aid flotilla to Gaza.
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In the pictures, taken in the moments before the IDF succeeded in taking control of the ship, the soldiers are shown bleeding and some of them being led by the activists on board.
The widely-circulated paper says the photos were purposefully censored by Israel, and that they had been saved by one of the activists, who salvaged them from a digital memory stick.
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The report, entitled 'Commando tears', says the soldiers who raided the ship attempted to confiscate the activists' digital cameras and memory sticks "in order to leave no trace". It says the photos were originally erased, but later reproduced by advanced Turkish technology.
"The people of the IHH presented the photos of the soldiers' neutralization, which the Israeli army attempted to contain in order to prevent damage to their image," the Hurriyet wrote.
One of the photos shows a Commando soldier lying on his back on deck, surrounded by six people and attempting to cover his face. Another soldier is shown being led down the stairs, his face bloody. At his side is a cameraman, documenting the incident on video.
Another photo shows a soldier falling down the stairs, a wool cap covering his face. In a different photo, two activists are seen awaiting the arrival of the soldiers, metal rods in their hands.
Army: Their sole purpose was to kill troops
It is evident from the pictures that those on board the Marmara succeeded in isolating a number of soldiers and beating them for at least a few minutes before the Israel Defense Forces took control of the vessel.
The soldiers' faces are clearly shown in the photos, whereas the Israeli press blurred them in order to protect the identity of those who took part in the raid.
The IDF Spokesperson's Office expressed its satisfaction with the Turkish newspapers' decision to publish the photos. "This is clear proof of Israel's repeated claims, that the boat was carrying mercenaries, whose sole purpose was to kill the soldiers.
"The images could have been different, had the soldiers chosen to shoot any civilian who approached them. Thanks to their strength and deep understanding of the event, the Navy Commandos managed to distinguish between a peace activist and a terrorist." _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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http://fotogaleri.hurriyet.com.tr/GaleriDetay.aspx?cid=36575&p=9&rid=2
Из фотографий видно, что израильские солдаты действительно были захвачены. Однако никто их убивать не собирался - иначе убили бы. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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When St.-Sgt. S. fast-roped down from an air force Black Hawk helicopter onto the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship on Monday morning, he did not expect to be landing in what he called “a battlefield” and facing off against a group of “murderous mercenaries.”
The 15th and last naval commando from Flotilla 13 (the Shayetet) to rappel down onto the ship from the helicopter, S. said on Thursday that he was immediately attacked by what the IDF has called “the mob of mercenaries” aboard the vessel, just like the soldiers who had boarded just before him.
Looking to his side, he saw three of his commanders lying wounded – one with a gunshot wound to the stomach and another with a gunshot wound to the knee. A third was lying unconscious; his skull was fractured by a devastating blow with a metal bar.
As the next in the chain of command, S., who has been in the Shayetet for three and a half years, immediately took charge.
He pushed the wounded soldiers up against the wall of the upper deck and created a perimeter of soldiers around them to begin treating their wounds, he said. He then arranged his men to form a second perimeter, and pulled out his 9 mm. Glock pistol to stave off the charging attackers and to protect his wounded comrades.
The attackers had already seized two pistols from the commandos, and fired repeatedly at them. Facing more than a dozen of the mercenaries, and convinced their lives were in danger, he and his colleagues opened fire, he said. S. singlehandedly killed six men. His colleagues killed another three.
On Thursday, S. sat down with The Jerusalem Post at the Shayetet’s base in northern Israel for an exclusive interview, during which he described the dramatic events aboard the Mavi Marmara on Monday; he is being considered for a medal of valor.
“When I hit the deck, I was immediately attacked by people with bats, metal pipes and axes,” S. told the Post. “These were without a doubt terrorists. I could see the murderous rage in their eyes and that they were coming to kill us.”
S. does not look like a hero. Well-built, like all commandos in the Shayetet, he is also soft-spoken and stingy with words, but his commander Lt.-Col. T. fills in the blanks.
“S. did a remarkable job,” T. said. “He stabilized the situation and succeeded in hitting six of the terrorists.”
Based on preliminary results of its investigation into the navy’s takeover of the Mavi Marmara, which ended with nine dead passengers and more than 30 wounded, the IDF said on Thursday that the commandos were attacked by a well-trained group of mercenaries, most of whom were found without IDs but with thousands of dollars in their pockets.
The group was well trained and was split into a number of squads of about 20 mercenaries each distributed throughout the upper deck, the IDF said. All of the mercenaries wore gas masks and ceramic bulletproof vests and were armed with either bats, slingshots, metal bars, knives or stun grenades.
The IDF’s understanding is that the mercenaries mainly chose dual-purpose items of this sort rather than guns, since opening fire would have made it blatantly clear that they were terrorists and not so-called peace activists.
Nevertheless, the IDF suspects that the group did have some guns of its own. Israeli forensic experts who examined the ship found casings belonging to a weapon that was not used by the commandos, and the Turkish captain of the ship later told the IDF that the “mercenaries” threw their weapons overboard after the commandos took control of the vessel.
T. said he realized the group they were facing was well-trained and likely ex-military after the commandos threw a number of stun grenades and fired warning shots before rappelling down onto the deck. “They didn’t even flinch,” he said. “Regular people would move.”
Each squad of the “mercenaries” was equipped with a Motorola communication device, the IDF said, so they could pass information to one another. Assessments in the defense establishment are that members of the group were affiliated with international global jihad elements and had undergone training in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
S. on Thursday downplayed his involvement in the operation. “I did what I was trained to do and now I move on,” he said.
In contrast to earlier reports, the commandos said that they began using their weapons within a minute and a half after boarding the ship, due to the extreme violence they faced. One of the reasons S. pulled out his gun right after landing on the ship was because one of the mercenaries was pointing a pistol, snatched from one of the commandos, at another commando’s head. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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...That night, at 10:30 p.m., the Mavi Marmara received a radio transmission from an Israeli warship. Zoabi, an Israeli Arab lawmaker, was on the bridge. The Israeli sailors asked the captain for the ship's destination, she said, and the captain answered that he was headed for Gaza.
The Israelis ordered the flotilla to halt, but the ships pressed ahead. About 80 miles away, in the besieged Palestinian territory, the Hamas government had prepared a festive welcome, decking out the territory's ruined port with red Turkish flags.
By 1:30 a.m., Zoabi could make out lights on the horizon and identified eight ships. The Israelis trailed the flotilla for three more hours, keeping their distance, she said.
At 4:30 a.m., with the boats still in international waters, the Israeli commanders gave the order for the operation to begin, and Zoabi saw speedboats and helicopters moving swiftly toward the Marmara.
Five of the flotilla's six boats were swiftly commandeered by the Israelis.
On the Free Mediterranean, carrying mainly Greek and Swedish activists and a load of wheelchairs, building materials and medicine, Aris Papadokostopolous said he saw commandos come aboard.
"Some people were hit by clubs and electric shocks," he said, but no one was seriously hurt.
On the freighter Gazze 1, masked soldiers ordered everyone into one room and kept them there for nine hours, according to Turkish activist Mustafa Sancaktutan. There, too, no one was seriously hurt.
Aboard the Mavi Marmara, passengers were deafened by the roar of an Israeli Black Hawk helicopter. A rope dropped down, and the first of three 15-man teams began to descend.
According to commandos interviewed by The Associated Press, the troops were expecting little resistance and had exchanged their usual assault rifles for paintball guns.
"It was a civilian paintball gun that any 12-year-old can play with," one soldier said, speaking on condition of anonymity under military regulations. The soldiers said they had loaded pistols to use only in the event of an emergency.
Zoabi said she heard gunfire over the ship and saw blue flares. Other passengers also said the soldiers fired on the boat before boarding. Israel denies this. None of the passengers interviewed by AP have said lethal force was used by the Israelis before they boarded the ship.
Paech, a retired law professor from Hamburg, Germany, awoke to the sound of explosions. He went outside and saw soldiers. "They were wearing camouflage, had their faces masked, had night vision gear on their helmets and carried lots of weapons," he said.
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Like Zoabi and Paech, most passengers had no intention of confronting the troops and were not on the top deck when the first soldiers rappelled down.
But a video released by the military showed a group of several dozen men waiting for the Israelis.
The edited footage showed soldiers descending from the Black Hawk into a crowd of men with sticks and clubs. Three or four activists overpowered each soldier as he landed, beating each one to the deck, where they were surrounded by more men with sticks. One soldier was tossed over the side onto a lower deck.
"When I landed on the other deck I felt that someone had stabbed me in the stomach. I pulled the knife out of my stomach," the soldier, identified only as Captain R., told Israeli Channel 10 TV from his hospital bed. One commando said several of his comrades jumped into the water to save themselves.
Paech could not see what was happening on the top deck.
"I don't deny that in the fighting some of them were using some of the weapons they've been showing on TV now, like the slingshot or the hatchets," he said. "But don't forget that the Israelis attacked us in international waters. According to international law, you're allowed to defend yourself when you get attacked."
With men down and believing their lives were in danger, the Israeli commandos say they requested permission to use live fire. This was granted about 4:50 a.m., 20 minutes after the operation began. The Israelis pulled out their pistols and began to shoot.
In the ensuing melee, two activists succeeded in wresting two pistols away from the troops and shot two soldiers, according to the Israeli military and hospital officials. Israel says both activists were shot dead.
But those on the ship had no chance against armed and highly trained troops, and by 5 a.m., the ship was under the commandos' control.
Nine activists were dead, most of them Turks, according to the Israeli military. Dozens were wounded, along with seven soldiers. Paech said casualties were brought into a makeshift field hospital on one of the lower decks; footage from the activists showed passengers in orange life jackets treating the wounded.
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Israeli officers later displayed slingshots, knives and truncheons they said were found on the ship as evidence of organized resistance. Defense officials also say some activists had military-style gear such as bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles and carried large sums of cash.
From the activists' side, no one who was on the top deck at the time of the assault had come forward by Wednesday, possibly because the people involved are either dead, wounded or in Israeli custody.
Zoabi and others on board do not deny there was resistance but say it was not organized.
"The ... helicopters, the ships and gunfire created the atmosphere that people wanted to defend themselves," Zoabi said.
Inge Hoeger, a member of the German Left Party, said that after securing the ship soldiers searched the passengers, took their personal belongings and handcuffed them. "They were obviously looking for weapons. They raided and slashed all the suitcases of all passengers and everything was all over the place," she said.
Within an hour, Israeli air force helicopters were evacuating the wounded soldiers and passengers. Several hours later, Turkey had recalled its ambassador to Israel, Greece had canceled a joint military exercise and nearly every country in Europe had weighed in with a condemnation of Israel.
Paech was sent in a police car to Israel's international airport and put on a plane to Berlin.
"They did not give back any of our luggage or personal belongings. I arrived with only my T-shirt and my pants," he said. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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The Israel Defense Forces revealed on Sunday that five of the pro-Palestinian activists aboard the Turkish-flagged ship it intercepted last week en route to the Gaza Strip have links to the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.
The military did not specify whether these five activists took part in the violent clashes with the Israel Navy commandos that left nine people dead and several more wounded.
One of the activists exposed by the IDF was named as Iranian-born Fatima Mohammadi, a 31-year-old resident of the United States. According to the IDF, Mohammadi is a member of Viva Palestine, a movement that had tried bringing illegal electronic devices into the Gaza Strip.
Ken O'Keefe, a 41-year-old citizen of the United States and Britain, was another activist named by the IDF as having links to terrorist organizations. According to the IDF, O'Keefe is an extremist who hates Israel and whose "goal was to reach Gaza in order to help train and establish Hamas commando units."
The other activists singled out by the IDF were Hassan Aynsey, a 28-year-old Turkish citizen who belongs to an Islamic charity and regularly contributed financial assistance to Islamic Jihad; Hussein Orush, a supporter of the Turkish IHH who was allegedly planning to help bring Al-Qaida militants from Turkey to Gaza; and Ahmed Omemun, a 51-year-old Moroccan-born resident of France and allegedly a member of Hamas. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards are ready to provide a military escort to cargo ships trying to break Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip, a representative of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday.
"Iran's Revolutionary Guards naval forces are fully prepared to escort the peace and freedom convoys to Gaza with all their powers and capabilities," Ali Shirazi, Khamenei's representative inside the Revolutionary Guards, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.
Any intervention by the Iranian military would be considered highly provocative by Israel which accuses Iran of supplying weapons to Hamas, the Islamist movement which rules Gaza.
The Guards, with their own navy, air force and command structure separate from the regular armed forces, are seen as fiercely loyal to the values of the Islamic Republic.
"If the Supreme Leader issues an order for this then the Revolutionary Guard naval forces will do their best to secure the ships," Shirazi said. "It is Iran's duty to defend the innocent people of Gaza."
Israel Navy commandos last Monday killed nine activists in clashes on board the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara in a convoy trying to deliver aid to Gaza. The incident sparked international outrage, especially in Muslim countries and in Turkey, which threatened to cut its long-standing ties with Israel.
Israeli troops boarded another ship on Saturday and pro-Palestinian activists have promised more as they challenge the blockade imposed four years ago with the stated aim of stopping arms getting to Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel would continue to stop ships reaching the shore and creating "an Iranian port in Gaza", a reference to Iran's support for Hamas. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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As you know, I am just back from Brazil, Malawi and Uganda. I will return to Africa next week and again later this month.
Let me turn right away to the tragic deaths and injuries that took place during the Israeli operation on Monday to stop ships carrying supplies for Gaza.
You have seen my statements. I have been closely following developments.
As you know, the Security Council adopted a Presidential Statement outlining a course to address the situation.
Today, the Human Rights Council in Geneva adopted a resolution deciding to dispatch an independent international fact-finding mission.
In view of these decisions, I am consulting about the way forward with the concerned parties, including the Security Council.
I have spoken to many world leaders, and this afternoon I met with Arab, Turkish, and Israeli Permanent Representatives, as well as with key members of the Security Council.
The Israeli authorities must provide, as soon as possible, a full and detailed accounting of the events surrounding the incident, including information on the detained, wounded and killed.
I am relieved to learn that most of the detainees and injured are returning home today.
Everything must be done to prevent another incident of this kind. All concerned should act with a sense of care and responsibility, and in accordance with international law.
At this sensitive time, it is essential to avoid provocations. The United Nations has raised its concerns about this with international partners and the Israeli authorities.
This tragedy only highlights the serious underlying problem. The long-running closure imposed on the Gaza Strip is counter-productive, unsustainable and wrong. It punishes innocent civilians. It must be lifted by the Israeli authorities immediately.
In recent months, I have consistently urged the Government of Israel, at the highest levels, including during my visit in March, to lift this blockade and allow the United Nations and other humanitarian relief supplies into Gaza. If this had been done, this tragedy would have been avoided.
The Quartet Envoys have been in close contact. In a conversation yesterday, they emphasized the need to fundamentally improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
In the meantime, subject to the consent of donors and without any strings attached, we will do our part so that aid from the convoy reaches its destination, as called for by the Security Council. We encourage all parties to be flexible to enable this to happen.
Speaking more broadly, we must advance the proximity talks facilitated by the United States. Despite the latest developments, it is vital for the talks to continue.
This week's events underscore the urgency of real progress in the Middle East peace process. I commend President Abbas's courageous decision to continue, and Arab partners for their flexibility.
As Secretary-General, I stand ready to take any necessary action, and will continue my personal engagement to contribute to a resolution of the conflict.
Now I will be happy to take your questions. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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Deputy High Commissioner Kyung-wha Kang (second right) addresses Human Rights Council debate
2 June 2010 – Strongly condemning Israel’s actions against the humanitarian flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip, the United Nations Human Rights Council voted today to dispatch an independent, international probe into violations of international law resulting from Monday’s incident.
With 32 votes in favour to three against, and nine abstentions, the 47-member Council also deeply deplored the loss of life resulting from Israel’s “attack” on the convoy, and demanded that Israel release all detained persons and material aboard the ships.
Italy, the Netherlands and the United States voted against the resolution, which also called on Israel to immediately lift the blockade on Gaza, which it imposed for what it called security reasons after Hamas, which does not recognize Israel’s right to exist, ousted the Fatah movement in the Strip in 2007.
Israel’s military interception of the aid ships led to the deaths of several civilians and the wounding of dozens of others. Early yesterday the Security Council issued a resolution in which it “condemns those acts which resulted in the loss” of the lives of civilians and calls for a “prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation” into the incident.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has also called for a prompt probe, has appealed for the immediate release of those detained in the raid, and he said today in remarks to journalists at UN Headquarters in New York that most of the detainees are now returning to their home countries.
Mr. Ban said that he would consult with concerned parties on the way forward after the Security Council’s presidential statement and the Human Rights Council’s resolution.
The Secretary-General noted that he has already had discussions with Arab, Turkish and Israeli representatives, as well as with members of the Security Council.
Israel must provide “a full and detained accounting of the events” around the military operation, he said, adding that he was relieved to learn that most of the detainees are now returning to their home countries.
He stressed that the incident highlights a serious underlying problem – that Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip is “counterproductive, unsustainable and wrong” and should be lifted immediately.
Asked about reports that another convoy of ships is heading towards Gaza, Mr. Ban urged all parties to act with caution and responsibility to avoid a repeat of Monday’s incident.
The aid convoy that was intercepted by Israel was said to have been carrying educational, medical and construction materials, as well as hundreds of activists from different countries, to Gaza, where the blockade has caused ongoing suffering for 1.5 million Palestinian inhabitants.
The UN has repeatedly spoken out against the closure of Gaza and raised concerns over the insufficient flow of material into the area to meet basic needs and spur reconstruction.
Irina Bokova, Director-General of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), today voiced her concern that a number of journalists who were aboard the ships had been detained by Israel.
Ms. Bokova expressed her shock at the incident, and highlighted the need to ensure that journalists can report accurately and without hindrance. _________________ A la guerre comme a la guerre или вторая редакция Забугорнова
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