What happened to us is happening in Gaza
Saturday, June 5, 2010
In the predawn hours of May 31, I was aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, part of a convoy of humanitarian vessels aiming to deliver aid to besieged civilians in Gaza, when we were attacked in international waters by a unit of Israeli commandos.
Our ship had been inspected by customs agents in Turkey, a NATO member, who confirmed that there were no guns or any such weapons aboard. Indeed, the Israeli government has produced no such arms. What was aboard the ship were hundreds of civilian passengers, representatives of dozens of countries, who had planned to deliver the flotilla's much-needed humanitarian materials for the Gazan people. These Palestinians have suffered under an illegal siege - first imposed by Israel in 2005 and strictly enforced since early 2009 - which Amnesty International has called "a flagrant violation of international law."
The passengers on our ship - including elected officials, diplomats, media professionals and human rights workers - joined the flotilla as an act of peaceful protest. Israel's powerful navy could have easily approached our boat and boarded it in broad daylight or pursued nonviolent options for disabling our vessel. Instead, the Israeli military launched a nighttime assault with heavily armed commandos. Under attack, some passengers skirmished with the boarding soldiers using broomsticks and other items at hand. The commandos and navy soldiers shot and killed at least nine civilians and seriously injured dozens more. Others are still missing. The final death toll has yet to be determined.
I feared for the lives of my fellow passengers as I heard shots being fired on deck, and I later saw the bodies of several people killed being carried inside. I had expected soldiers to shoot in the air or aim at people's legs, but instead I saw the bodies of people who appeared to have been shot multiple times in the head or chest.
When it was over, the Israeli soldiers commandeered our ships, illegally kidnapped us from international waters, towed us to the port of Ashdod, and arrested all of us on board.
The Israeli government has confiscated all of our video equipment, hard drives with video footage, cell phones and notebooks. They detained the journalists aboard my ship, preventing them for days from speaking about what happened. Acting on Israel's behalf at the U.N. Security Council, the United States has attempted to block a full, impartial, international investigation of the incident.
Nevertheless, even at this early stage the world has expressed outrage around a basic fact: There is no justification for launching a deadly commando attack in the dark of night on a humanitarian-aid convoy.
The Israeli government denies that its punitive blockade of Gaza is the source of hardship for civilians there. While its spokespeople actively work to create confusion in the media, the truth is clear for all who would care to see it. The overwhelming conclusion of highly respected human rights authorities is that the Israeli government, because it does not accept the legitimacy of the elected Hamas government, is pursuing a policy of what Human Rights Watch calls "collective punishment against the civilian population," illegal under international law.
With regard to the flotilla I was on, the Israeli government says it would have permitted our humanitarian aid to enter Gaza by land had we submitted it through "proper channels." But Israel's "proper channels" - restrictive checkpoints that have repeatedly turned away World Health Organization medical supplies and rejected or delayed the delivery of U.N. food aid - are the very source of the humanitarian crisis.
Israeli spokespeople insist that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was a provocation. It was, in the sense that civil rights protesters in the American south who sat at segregated lunch counters represented a provocation to segregationists, or in the sense that all nonviolent protests against the illegitimate acts of a government are by definition provocations. Under an illegal siege, the delivery of aid to civilians is a prohibited act; the intent of our humanitarian convoy was to violate this unjust prohibition.
At least nine of my fellow passengers were killed by the Israeli military for attempting to defy the ban on delivering aid. Far more Palestinian civilians have died as a result of the siege itself. What happened to our flotilla is happening to the people of Gaza on a daily basis. It will not stop until international law is applied to all countries, Israel included.
Iara Lee is a filmmaker and a co-founder of the San Francisco's Caipirinha Foundation ( www.culturesofresistance.org/caipirinha-foundation).
Flotilla survivors describe 'bloodbath'
Reuters - Last updated 08:29 04/06/2010
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.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.
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.
Israel says its troops fired only after some of their weapons had been seized by activists, who fired first.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.
"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."
>via: http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/middle-east/3775714/Flotilla-survivors-describe-bloodbath
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Henning Mankell: 'That kind of stupidity I will never understand'
Swedish author and creator of Wallander gives a dramatic account of his experience as part of the Gaza aid flotilla attacked by Israel
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Flotilla raid diary: 'A man is shot. I am seeing it happen'
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
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 Gazafinally 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
>via: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2010/jun/05/flotilla-raid-henning-mankell-diary
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Israel hasbara fails again: Photos show Mavi Marmara passengers protecting, aiding Israeli soldiers
Captured, disarmed hijackers did not face "lynching" as Israel claimed
The website of Turkish newspaper Hürriyet published a gallery of photos showing Israeli soldiers captured after their attack on the Mavi Marmara in international waters in the early hours of 31 May.
The predictable response of the Israeli army, as quoted in Haaretz, was that the "published pictures serve as clear and unequivocal proof of Israel's repeated arguments that aboard [the Mavi Marmara] were mercenaries who intended to kill Israeli soldiers." Israeli spokespersons and media in recent days have also claimed the soldiers faced "lynching," a provocative term which originated to describe the deliberate mob murders of African Americans by white supremacists in the United States.
The photos indicate nothing of the sort; if anything they show the opposite. First, it is clear that the passengers would have had ample time and opportunity to seriously harm or kill the Israeli soldiers if that had been their intention. While at least 9 flotilla passengers were killed by the Israelis, no Israeli was killed even though it appears at least two and up to four were disarmed and captured as they carried out an illegal, unprovoked armed attack on a civilian ship in international waters.
In some of the Hürriyet photos passengers or medics appear to be protecting and aiding the Israeli soldiers. Below we see a passenger taking a clearly wounded Israeli attacker and protecting him -- not from any violent attack -- but merely from being photographed.
An additional photo, not included in the Hürriyet gallery, but posted on the Facebook fan page of The Economist shows the same soldier, and the person who was holding him, while a third person administers medical care. (Thanks to http://twitter.com/AmoonaM for tracking down this picture)
Another photo from the Hürriyet gallery, below, again shows a soldier who appears to be getting assistance to stop bleeding on his face with a bandage or white cloth. Of course it is possible to give a lurid, sensational and imaginative, explanation to this photo -- as the Israeli army is trying to do -- and claim that someone is trying to suffocate the soldier! But given the fact that he wasn't suffocated and all the Israeli soldiers came home a
Githanda Githae (KENYA)
Grace Wangare (KENYA)
Komba (Tanzania)
