Israel made no mistakes in the killing of at least nine aid volunteers and wounding 45 on board the Mavi Marmara leading the Flotilla of Freedom before dawn on Monday, 31 May, 2010, in the Mediterranean international waters 120 km from the coastline.
700 Israel elite troopers (commandos) were dispatched against the 700 unarmed multinational volunteers in a flotilla of seven seeking to save 100,000 homeless Gazans.
Among the dead is Swedish bestselling mystery author, Henning Mankell, it was reported. The wounded have been transferred to an Israeli hospital and reports say more may die in the next several days.
The Gazans are victims of the close-border stranglehold Israel and Egypt imposed from three years ago. Israel killed tens of thousands of Gazans in an invasion last year.
The Freedom Flotilla, put together by international humanitarian lifeline for Gaza on the intiative of the Freedom For Gaza Movement based in Cyprus, aimed to breach the siege with food, medicine and construction material, a simple humanitarian act that would be called charity in any language, including Hebrew, other than in Israel.
Israel imaged that charity as a breach of her security, an act of unimaginable malevolence by a bunch of Islamic states, meaning that the country the British and Americans had helped found in the wake of the World War II has a psyche of her own the rest of humanity can hardly deem as belonging to anything humane.
Turkey foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu said Israel 'has lost all legitimacy' and its action 'constitute a grave breach of international law...It is murder conducted by a state.'
The flotilla is not all done. The Rachel Corrie and two cargo ships have decided to continue to Gaza on June 1. It has Malaysians and Irish volunteers on board. The internaional community will have to protect the volunteers on board or never live down this event of castaway diplomacy against a regime of crime. Pro-Israel news agencies, and they are probably 75 percent of the old media, are saying the volunteers started the fight on the Mavi Marmara armed Israeli commandos boarded.
The picture below is of one of several protests in Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday, 1st June, 2010.
It is another of Israel’s act of mass murder. Until the UNSC does something effective to end the inhuman atrocities of this brutal regime, simply boycott everything of Israel NOW! But make no mistake when asking the US to shun Israel. She is the USA's forward base in the Medterranean and the Arab World, now also of the Greater Middle East.
In all of her 62 years of existence Israel has never tolerated any difference of point of view. Any opinion that differs with her viewpoint is regarded as malevolent and belligerent. It's now about the Free Gaza Movement and you.- a. ghani ismail, 1 June, 2010
Part 2
Murder on Mavi Marmara - Malaysian Journalist Tells The Story
The young journalist from the Malaysian satellite television station was evicted to safety from a prison in Israel. He and hundred of volunteers in the Aid Flotilla were taken to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod by Israeli commandos from international waters 120 meters out to sea in the Mediterranean. They were attacked, 9 killed on board the Mavi Marmara and 10 dead to the time of writing. Forty five were sent to the hospital, mostly with gunshot wounds, some in critical condition.
Astro Awani’s Ashwad Ismail, 26, said on his arrival in Jordan, he had only been 28 hours in one of Israel’s prison and that brief experience after the brutality he encountered on board the Mavi Marmara gave him a taste of Palestine sufferings endured through 62 years of the brutal regime.
The Israeli commandos had surrounded the Mavi Marmara by 11 pm and they invaded at 2.45 in the morning. There were three helicopters circling overhead and in the sea were troops on boats. They invaded and shot at us with live bullets, Ashwad recounted.
“I had called Awani in Kuala Lumpur at 7.45 pm to inform them what reports to expect from me. I could not imagine Israel would do this. Suddenly I found myself crawling on the deck in a sea of blood, trying to find a way out and then a laser from a soldier’s gun was pointed to my head. I surrendered.”
Ashwad left Kuala Lumpur for Istanbul with Awani’s cameraman, Shamsulkamal Abdul Latip, 43. They left on 23 May and from Istanbul they went to Antalya where they boarded the Mavi Marmara for the journey that was to take them into a killing-field on the ship that took nine (now 10) lives and wounded at least 45.
The Mavi Mamara was leading a flotilla of seven with 10,000 tons of construction material, school equipment, some food and clothing as humanitarian aid for more than 100,000 Gazans made homeless by the regime’s heartless invasion of the Hamas governed finger-tip territory the Palestinians of Gaza call home underneath Israeli law.
For the past three years they lived under a siege applied by the regime and Egypt. Even the meanest medical supply and food could not go through the tunnels that had been dug by the Gazans and bombed to bits by Israel.
The twelve Malaysian volunteers were taken to Ashdod, fed pieces of bread and water, later evicted to Jordan where they were being waited for by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anifah Aman. Anifah fumed.
Back home Malaysia was preparing for a special parliamentary session to discuss the event and what steps to take. A number of small protests were held on June 1 mainly to deliver a memorandum to the US Embassy. A large demonstration is to be held on Friday, June 4. Parliament sits to discuss the matter on Monday, June 7.
The volunteers taken to Ashdod have mostly been evicted. About 50 have been detained against a fury of protests that threatens to turn Israel into an outcast terrorist state the likes of which should never have soiled humanity.
Ashwad said there were naval crafts, a ship and three helicopters that Israel had sent to invade and capture the flotilla. Other reports say Israel had sent 700 commandos. There were also 700 volunteers in the desperate humanitarian attempt to secure the basic needs of the Gazans living beneath Israel’s tyranny.
Ashwad continued his story. He had the laser of a commando gun on his head and he put up both his hands. Israeli soldiers bound him and he was ordered to stay on the deck.
The Mavi Marmara was then forced to sail to the port of Ashdod. All of the volunteers were later taken to a prison at Vir Sheba.
Ashwad said, it took 12 hours for the captive volunteers to be taken to Ashdod and then to the prison. They were given some water, but no food.
At the prison food was bread and greens, Ashwad said. ‘We were yelled at, humiliated and generally treated as common prisoners.’
The Mavi Marmara carried no weapons. Ashwad recounted that in self-defense some volunteers had used whatever pieces of iron on the ship that was within reach, after the Israelis had opened fire.
The volunteers mainly used water from the fire-hoses. They had not anticipated such a gruesome brute action and even if they did they would not have brought weapons with them. It was a mission to save lives, not to destroy any.
Humanity has been maimed, again, by a regime that has said and would be saying still, that it has the right to self-defense. Against everybody that disagrees? Is that it? ---a. ghani ismail, 3 June, 2010
Demonstrations in Kuala Lumpur on June 4. Parliament will sit on Israel's attack of the Mavi Marmara and the Gaza seige on Monday, June 7.
