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From AP and Yahoo news:
JERUSALEM -- Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla
of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian
activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing
nine passengers in a botched raid that provoked
international outrage and a diplomatic crisis.
Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in
the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters.
The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel's
international image, already tarnished by war crimes
accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the
impoverished Palestinian territory.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanhayu canceled a
much-anticipated meeting with President Barack Obama in
Washington on Tuesday in a sign of just how gravely Israel
viewed the uproar. In Canada, Netanyahu announced he was
rushing home but said he had called the American president
and agreed to meet again.
President Barack Obama voiced "deep regret" over the raid
and "expressed the importance of learning all the facts and
circumstances" surrounding the incident.
The activists were headed to Gaza to draw attention to the
blockade, which Israel and Egypt imposed after the militant
Hamas group seized the territory of 1.5 million Palestinians
in 2007.
There were conflicting accounts of what happened early
Monday, with activists claiming the Israelis opened fire
without provocation and Israel insisting its forces fired in
self defense.
Speaking alongside the Canadian prime minister, Netanyahu
expressed "regret" for the loss of life but said the
soldiers had no choice. "Our soldiers had to defend
themselves, defend their lives, or they would have been
killed," he said.
Israel said it opened fire after its commandos were attacked
by knives, clubs and live fire from two pistols wrested from
soldiers after they rappelled from a helicopter at about 4
a.m. to board one of the vessels.
Note: Getting an accurate time is difficult.
Official information places the beginning 30 minutes
later at "4:30 a.m.: Rappelling from a helicopter and clambering
up the side from fast attack boats, commandos of the Israeli
navy's elite Flotilla 13 storm the Mavi Marmara, a
Turkish ferry serving as the flagship of the Gaza-bound
flotilla, in international waters about 65 km north of Gaza
City." In yet another account, Farooq Burney, a Canadian
onboard the Mavi Marmara, says, "The attack began happening at about 4:10."
(Story continues below)
The GCP event was set according to standard protocol:
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attack was 04:30 local time, so the GCP event was set for
3:30 to 9:30, May 31 (00.30 to 06:30 UTC). The result is Chisquare
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driven by chance, and every "null" might include a real
signal overwhelmed by noise. In the long run, a real effect
can
be identified only by patiently accumulating replications of
similar analyses.
News story continues
Night-vision footage released by the military showed
soldiers dropping from a helicopter one by one and being
grabbed by a mob of men wielding sticks on the lead boat,
the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara. The soldiers succumbed to
the assailants and fell to the deck, where the men continued
to beat them and dump one of them from the top deck.
Communications to the ships were cut shortly after the raid
began, and activists were kept away from reporters after
their boats were towed to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
Helicopters evacuated the wounded to Israeli hospitals,
officials said. Five ships had reached port by early evening
and some 136 activists had been removed without serious
incident, the military said.
Sixteen were jailed for refusing to identify themselves,
police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said. Israel had said
activists would be given the choice to be deported or
imprisoned.
Israeli officials said the death toll was nine with 30
wounded, after earlier saying 10 people were killed. It said
the final tally was reached after bringing all six boats in
the flotilla under control.
A high-ranking naval official displayed a box confiscated
from the boat containing switchblades, slingshots, metal
balls and metal bats. Most of the dead were Turkish, he
said.
In a sign the soldiers didn't anticipate such fierce
resistance, two commandos told The Associated Press that the
primary weapons were guns that fired paintballs -- a
nonlethal weapon that can be used to subdue crowds. They
said they resorted to lethal handgun fire after they were
assaulted.
Turkey's NTV network showed activists beating one commando
with sticks as he landed on one of the boats. Dr. Arnon
Afek, deputy director of Chaim Sheba Medical Center outside
Tel Aviv, said two commandos were brought in with gunshot
wounds. Another had serious head wounds from an unspecified
blow, Afek added.
Activists, however, painted a completely different picture,
saying the commandos stormed the ships after ordering them
to stop in international waters, about 80 miles (130
kilometers) from Gaza's coast.
A reporter with the pan-Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera,
who was sailing on the Turkish ship leading the flotilla,
said the Israelis fired at the vessel before boarding it,
wounding the captain.
"These savages are killing people here, please help," a
Turkish television reporter said.
The broadcast ended with a voice shouting in Hebrew,
"Everybody shut up!"
At Barzilai hospital in the southern Israeli city of
Ashkelon, a few activists trickled in under military escort.
"They hit me," said a Greek man, whose right arm was in a
sling, calling the Israelis "pirates." He did not give his
name and later was escorted away with a neck brace.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Israel's military chief of
staff and navy commander said the violence was centered on
the lead boat, which was carrying 600 of the 700 activists.
Troops took over the five other boats without incident,
military chief Gabi Ashkenazi said.
Reaction was swift and harsh, with a massive protest in
Turkey, Israel's longtime Muslim ally, which unofficially
supported the mission. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused
Israel of "state terrorism," and the government said it was
recalling its ambassador and called off military exercises
with the Jewish state.
The U.N. Security Council held an emergency meeting later
Monday, while the Arab League planned to meet Tuesday in
Cairo.
Robin Churchill, a professor of international law at the
University of Dundee in Scotland, said the Israeli commandos
boarded the ship outside of Israel's territorial waters.
"As far as I can see, there is no legal basis for boarding
these ships," Churchill said.
Many of the activists were from Europe.
The European Union deplored what it called excessive use of
force and called for the Gaza blockade to be lifted
immediately, calling it "politically unacceptable."
Israeli security forces were on alert across the country.
Protesters gathered at two universities and burned tires and
threw rocks in Israel's largest Arab city, but no injuries
were reported.
Organizers said two prominent activists, 1976 Nobel Peace
Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Holocaust
survivor Hedy Epstein, 85, did not join the flotilla as
planned.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the Israeli
"massacre," declared three days of mourning across the West
Bank.
Ismail Haniyeh, leader of the rival Hamas government in
Gaza, condemned the "brutal" Israeli attack and called on
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to intervene.
In Uganda, Ban condemned the deaths and called for a
"thorough" investigation.
Before the ships set sail from waters off Cyprus on Sunday,
Israel had urged the flotilla not to try to breach the
blockade and offered to transfer some of the cargo to Gaza
from an Israeli port, following a security inspection.
Organizers included the IHH, an Islamic humanitarian group
that is based in Istanbul but operates in several other
countries. Israel outlawed the group in 2008 because of its
ties to Hamas.
The flotilla of three cargo ships and three passenger ships
carrying 10,000 tons of aid and 700 activists was carrying
items that Israel bars from reaching Gaza, like cement and
other building materials.
Israel has allowed ships through five times, but has blocked
them from entering Gaza waters since a three-week military
offensive against Gaza's Hamas rulers in January 2009.
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