Knesset Member Hanin Zoabi, who was on board the Marmara ship when it was raided by Navy fighters, held a press conference in Nazareth on Tuesday, in which she accused Israel of committing crimes during its takeover of the Gaza-bound aid ship.
She called for an international inquiry into the incident.
Zoabi added: ‘It was clear from the size of the force that boarded the ship that the purpose was not only to stop this sail, but to cause the largest possible number of fatalities in order to stop such initiatives in the future.’
She said the flotilla’s participants did not have any violent intentions.
‘Our goal was to break the siege. We had no plans for a confrontation. Israel carried out a provocative military operation. Israel is used to doing as it pleases with the Palestinians. The main problem is not the ship, but the siege.’
She also demanded the activists held in Beersheba be allowed visitation.
‘We also demand a UN inquiry commission probe the Israeli claims. This is an international issue, because the passengers were from different nations.’
Of the raid itself, she said: ‘I entered the captain’s room. He was asked to stop by the Israeli soldiers. He said, “We are a Turkish ship”. We were 130 miles off. It was 11.30pm.
‘We saw four Israeli vessels, they were at a distance because we were in international waters.
‘At 4.15am we saw the ships approaching. They were dinghies and choppers.
‘At 4.30am the forces landed quickly. I did not hear any warning from the ships, because noise was coming from the ships and the choppers.
‘Within 10 minutes there were already three bodies. The entire operation took about an hour.’
She denied any resistance from the ship’s passengers.
‘There was not a single passenger who raised a club. We put on our life vests. From where I was standing, I didn’t see any clubs or anything of the sort.
‘There were gunshots, I don’t know if they were live bullets or not. There were gunshots fired from the ships in our direction.
‘A clear message was being sent to us, for us to know that our lives were in danger.
‘We convened that we were not interested in a confrontation.
‘What we saw was five bodies. There were only civilians and there were no weapons. There was a sense that I may not come out of it alive. Israel spoke of a provocation, but there was no provocation.’
Zoabi was released to her home on Tuesday morning after being questioned.
Shortly before the takeover, Zoabi said: ‘We are part of the Palestinian people. They are trying to break us. The ships took us by surprise and started to call out to us.
‘For four years, no one spoke about Gaza. Only in this past week did the entire world get to the war crimes of Israel, a country that occupies and violates basic humanitarian rights.’
Moreover, a Greek activist told of the moment Israeli troops stormed the Gaza-bound aid flotilla, using rubber bullets, tear gas and electroshock weapons to subdue those aboard.
‘Israeli troops jumped onto the boat around 0530 on Monday,’ Michalis Grigoropoulos said of the pre-dawn raid by Israeli forces.
Grigoropoulos was aboard the Eleftheri Mesogeio, smaller than the lead boat, the Mavi Marmara, which Israeli troops had attacked earlier.
‘They fired rubber coated bullets, tear gas and then used electroshock weapons on some activists,’ he told Skai television shortly after Israel deported him and five compatriots to Athens.
‘An hour beforehand, at 0430 local time, we heard gunfire on the Turkish boat Mavi Marmara, the Israelis jumped from helicopters onto the boat,’ he said.
Israel is still holding hundreds of the 686 passengers they seized and took back to the Israeli port of Ashdod, where Grigoropoulos said he was kept incommunicado, denied access to a lawyer and made to sign papers he did not understand.
Grigoropoulos criticised ‘the wretched detention conditions at Ashdod (where) 500 people were packed in together’ saying that ‘two Greek activists were beaten up’ there by Israeli police.
‘They made me sign papers on my expulsion, without me knowing what was on the papers because I did not have the right to a translator, a lawyer or to communicate with my family,’ he said.
The Eleftheri Mesogeio’s captain, Zaharias Stilianakis, who was among those returned to Athens, said that ‘after their assault on the boat, the commandos cut all means of communication.’
Three visibly shaken Germans who experienced the deadly raid by the Israeli military denied on Tuesday that anyone on board was armed.
‘The Israeli government justifies the raid because they were attacked. This is absolutely not the case,’ former Member of Parliament Norman Paech, 72, wrapped in a blue blanket, told reporters in Berlin.
‘This was not an act of self-defence.’
His comments were backed up by two others on board the convoy when it was raided at dawn on Monday in international waters, MPs Inge Hoeger, 59, and Annette Groth, 56.
‘We felt like we were in a war, like we were being kidnapped,’ Hoeger said. ‘We wanted to bring aid to Gaza. Nobody had a weapon.’
• Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called the Israeli massacre committed against the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ a ‘bloody massacre’, warning that ‘no one should test Turkey’s patience’.
Erdogan told the Turkish parliament that ‘this bloody massacre by Israel on ships that were taking humanitarian aid to Gaza deserves every kind of curse’.
He said the Israeli action was an attack on international law, the conscience of humanity and world peace.
Erdogan said the flotilla was legal, and the operation against it was a violation of the spirit of the United Nations.
He emphasised that the unjustified attack against the flotilla was ‘a blow to world peace and against international law’.
Erdogan, who was applauded throughout the speech, went over the steps taken by Turkey following the crime, including the recall of the Turkish ambassador in Tel Aviv, the cancellation of three military exercises that Turkey and the Zionist entity were supposed to carry out, and the return of a young Turkish basketball player from the occupied territories.
‘Now Israel has shown to all the world how well it knows how to kill,’ he said.
‘People were killed and badly wounded, some from shots, even when bound. How human is this? There is no other way of explaining this to the world.
‘All states condemn it, but this is not enough, we need results. People around the world need to know that one day justice will be revealed.
‘If Israel does not immediately free all the detainees and wounded, the rift in relations with it will widen.’
While saying the operation was an act of piracy, the Turkish Prime Minister stressed the Zionist entity must stop using the excuse of self-defence to justify its behaviour.
He emphasised that his country has never been anti-Semitic. He thanked the Jewish community in Turkey for its support for Turkey’s position.
‘Turkey’s friendship is as strong as its animosity,’ he said. ‘The Israeli nation must pressure its government to cease such acts.
‘All detainees must be released, including parliament members and the 60 Turkish journalists.
‘Israel will not be able to show itself in the world until it apologises for what happened and undergoes self-criticism. It is destroying its alliances one after the other.’
Due to the Israeli massacre, Erdogan cut short his visit to South America and returned to Ankara. During talks with Chilean reporters before his return, he said the crime was ‘state terror’ and called for an emergency NATO meeting to discuss the escalation.
‘This operation, which is completely against international law, is an act of inhuman state terror,’ he said. ‘Don’t think that we’ll sit by in silence after such events.’
