What started as a peaceful demonstration of support for the 1.7 million people of Gaza, turned bloody Monday as Israeli forces boarded six ships attempting to run the three-year-old blockade Israel has maintained of the Gaza Strip.
Reports of as many as 19 of the human rights activists being killed in the assault are giving Israel an international black eye, and threaten to dramatically change the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The exact number of people killed in the strike, however, remained unconfirmed, with some media outlets putting the figure closer to nine.
A Victoria, B.C., man, Kevin Neish, was aboard one of the six ships. Friends said they hadn't heard from Mr. Neish since Thursday.
A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said three helicopters with 15 soldiers aboard, and several commando boats approached the ships at about 4 a.m.
An Israeli commando said he descended with ropes and was immediately attacked by a group of people waiting for them. "They beat us up with metal sticks and knives," he said, adding, "There was live fire at some point against us."
He said a group of people pounced on the soldiers and beat them. One soldier had his guns snatched. "They were shooting at us from below deck."
He said some of the soldiers were tossed from the top deck to the lower deck by the activists and then jumped in the water to save themselves. Activists grabbed soldiers and tried to hold them hostage, stripping them of their helmets and equipment. He said about 30 activists, all speaking Arabic, had carried out the attack.
A high-ranking naval official displayed a box confiscated from the boat containing switchblades, slingshots, metal balls and metal bats. “We prepared (the soldiers) to deal with peace activists, not to fight,” he said. Most of the 10 dead were Turkish, he added.
“This is a historic day … a day of freedom … a turning point in the battle to end the siege of Gaza,” said Hamas prime minister Ismail Haniya on Gaza television. He sent his sympathies to the families of the dead and assured them the people would be viewed as “martyrs” in the campaign to liberate the Palestinian people.
Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, speaking from Ramallah, declared three days of mouring for the deaths of the international activists. He described the incident as the product of years of “built up aggression.”
Israeli's Prime Minister, meanwhile, says the soldiers were only defending themselves.
Benjamin Netanyahu says the Israeli soldiers were mobbed, clubbed, beaten and stabbed as they boarded one of six ships.
Netanyahu, who is cutting short his scheduled visits to Ottawa and Washington to deal with the crisis, said the soldiers had no choice but to defend their lives.
He said the boarding came as the Israeli navy was checking for any rockets, missiles or explosives that might have been aboard.
This video image released by the Turkish Aid group IHH is said to show Israeli soldiers aiming a gun on the deck of a Turkish ship, part of an aid convoy heading to the Gaza Strip, after Israeli soldiers boarded the vessel in international waters off the Gaza coast.
In the seaport of Gaza, that had been prepared to receive the international flotilla had it succeeded in running the blockade, banners in Arabic, English and Turkish proclaimed the convoy participants were “heroes.”
“The people are in shock and greatly angered,” reported Hassan Jaber, a Gaza journalist. “They have begun to gather at many sites around Gaza waving Turkish flags and protesting what has happened.”
Around 10,000 Turks marched in protest from the Israeli consulate in Istanbul to a main square, chanting, “Murderous Israel you will drown in the blood you shed!” The protesters earlier tried to storm the Consulate building but were blocked by police. Around 1,000 protested in Jordan's capital, Amman, calling for their government to cut diplomatic ties with Israel. Smaller protests erupted in capitals across the Middle East as well as in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, the Greek city of Thessaloniki and the Pakistani city of Karachi.
