Author Henning Mankell aboard Gaza flotilla stormed by Israeli troops: The Guardian
Fears for safety of bestselling Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell after surprise attack results in at least 10 deaths
The Swedish author Henning Mankell, who was due to appear at the Hay festival by satellite link. Photograph: Murdo Macleod for guardian.co.uk
The bestselling Swedish author Henning Mankell was on board a convoy of Gaza-bound aid boats stormed by Israeli forces today, resulting in the deaths of at least 10 activists and injuries to dozens of others. With the ships out of communication since the attack early this morning, it is not yet known whether he is among the injured.
Mankell had decided to join the aid-delivering flotilla – also believed to include Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire – in a gesture of solidarity towards Palestinians currently living under the Israeli blockade. The Free Gaza Movement and a coalition of activist groups have been attempting to circumvent import restrictions imposed by the country since 2008.
A spokesperson for Ship to Gaza-Sweden said he had last spoken to someone on board Mankell’s ship just before 5am Swedish time (4am BST). “They were telling us then about the Israeli soldiers climbing into the neighbouring ship, and they heard shooting aboard it. I was not speaking to Henning but to one of his friends. The Swedish ship was attacked a bit later, 10-15 minutes later. The whole attack was done between 4-5 o’clock Swedish time,” said Mikael Löfgren.
“We don’t know what’s happened since. When the ships were attacked, the Israelis cut off all communications and we haven’t heard from them since. As we speak, I can see the ships coming into the harbour of Ashdod [on television] so I presume that’s them,” Löfgren said. “We don’t know if they’re all right. The numbers of the killed and wounded are rising all the time. The latest information is talking about 19 deaths. It’s a really awful thing.”
Mankell, creator of the Wallander detective series, was scheduled to speak at the Guardian Hay festival this weekend but was forced to pull out after the flotilla was delayed as it negotiated entry into Israeli waters. He was set to be beamed in live from the boat for an evening appearance on Saturday evening with Ahdaf Soueif, the Egyptian novelist, and interviewer Jon Snow, but the link didn’t work; festival organisers called him numerous times but failed to connect.
At Hay today, barrister and author Michael Mansfield told the Guardian: “The main thing is that it was done in international waters, which is illegal. And it was not a convoy carrying military personnel … Israel does exactly what it wants and nobody lifts a finger. It’s absolutely outrageous.”
Mansfield pointed to an article in the Guardian in December by Nick Clegg in which he said that the international community has got to do something about it if Israel doesn’t end the blockade. “I’m afraid he’s got to be put on the spot when Philippe Sands interviews him [at Hay]. Never mind the Iraq war – this is far more serious.”
Clegg is scheduled to speak at Hay this weekend, while Israeli ambassador in London Ron Prosor is set to appear at the festival tomorrow evening to discuss “events and the state of Anglo-Israeli relations”; festival organisers said this afternoon that the event was going ahead as planned.
Last week, Mankell told Swedish radio that he decided to take part in the aid convoy to show his solidarity towards the Palestinians. “I think that when one talks about solidarity, one must always know that actions are what proves destiny,” he said. It is with actions that we prove we are ready to support something we believe is important.”
EDITOR: The Myth is being made!
Stand Up and Be Counted!
By Haim Bresheeth
Jews all over the world will be thinking long and hard about the massacre on the Flotilla ships, carried out by an ‘elite unit’ of the Israeli army. So they should. Many are used to defend the brutalities and extremes of the Jewish state through something resembling a Pavlovian knee-jerk reaction: “if Israel has done it, they it had very good reason for doing so.” The justification is the normative ‘security’ narrative projected globally by the Israeli propaganda machine, and it is accepted unquestioningly and willingly by Jewish communities everywhere. In the wake of the latest atrocity, itself a result of an international action against an even greater atrocity – the blockading – illegally and immorally, and as it happens, also uselessly, of almost two million Palestinians in Gaza, for four years, by Israel, with no real reaction from the international community.
Now speak to any Jews who support Israel through the various iniquities, and they will immediately tell you that all Israel wants is peace. All Israel ever does is directed towards achieving this aim, and the real culprits are on the other side, of course. Israeli propaganda is now working overtime, trying desperately to prove that the real violence leading to the piracy and murders on the high seas, came from the Flotilla members, who were, as Minister Danny Ayalon put it: “connected to Al Qaida”. It does not matter that even the people who write such tosh do not believe in it, as such rubbish will find the people who peddle it. Many are the apologists for Zionism, and most of them even try to believe in the hackneyed message they are peddling.
The picture, painted since the beginning of the 20th century, is not new:
– Jews in Palestine have come to revive the country, which was;
a. empty and waiting for them
b. full of murderous Arabs intent on throwing them into the sea
c. a useless desert
There follows a search for peace which lasts decades…
The Israelis love peace more than anything. That is why they attacked Egypt in 1956, in concert with France and the UK. Unfortunately that did not produce peace, so they continued to attack various Palestinian villages throughout the 1950s and 1960s. This also did not bring peace, so they attacked Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967, and occupied the whole of Sinai, Palestine and the Golan Heights. Unfortunately that also did not bring peace, so they spent the four decades since doing all they could to bring peace – they killed Palestinians and denied their rights, destroyed Beirut a few times, devastated the South of Lebanon, bombed Syria and Iraq, and then destroyed Gaza a few times, killing a few thousand civilians and built hundreds of checkpoints. But peace still eluded them. A difficult thing, peace. The more you try to get it, the more it slips away, a bit like the horizon, really.
The Arab armies attack on Israeli positions in 1973, and two Palestinian Intifadas have just serves to intensify Israeli commitment to peace. They built hundreds of settlements, confiscated Land, destroyed hundreds of thousands of olive trees. Still, peace has refused to come. In one last effort, they made Gaza into the largest ghetto ever built, and constructed the apartheid wall to help the peace along. At that point, with Gaza choking, they almost achieved their goal, but then came the Freedom Flotilla and deprived them of the elusive prize. Hard-boiled Al Qaida opeartives, masquerading as international activists, have set up a trap for the brave soldiers who came to give them flowers. How nasty can the enemies of peace be?
For those who wince at the lines above, can I suggest the following item from Israel’s most-read daily, Yediot Ahronot: “A Brutal Ambush at sea”, by Ron Ben Yisahi, the paper’s senior defence correspondent. Sure, there was a brutal ambush at sea, but not the one we all read about today. The boot is on the other foot:
“Our Navy commandoes fell right into the hands of the Gaza mission members. A few minutes before the takeover attempt aboard the Marmara got underway, the operation commander was told that 20 people were waiting on the deck where a helicopter was to deploy the first team of the elite Flotilla 13 unit.”
Reading on, you then find out that the brave soldiers got away with their life by sheer miracle, and obviously, their own moral code. They were brutally attacked by the activists, and only had paintball guns to protect themselves. It goes on in the same vein, and is not the only one – the Israel press and media is full of this Creative Writing 101 narrative.
Jews (and others) reading this in Britain and elsewhere, and wishing to continue supporting Israel, may find in those lines all they need. Israel was again attacked by the forces of darkness, and survived to tell the tale. A famous French Philosopher, Bernard Henri-Levy, was shocked this morning to see the pictures of the massacre, but his words were the words of a tired apologist, at the meeting in the French Embassy in Tel Aviv:
“I saw the IDF in action several times in my life. It is a unique army in its ideal of purity of arms. Until proven otherwise, I believe there were other ways of preventing them from entering Israeli territory, there were other ways of preventing what was clearly a provocation.”
Speaking of the Israeli army, the same which killed over 1400 civilians in Gaza, this is what Henri-Levy had to say:
“I have never seen such a democratic army, which asks itself so many moral questions. There is something unusually vital about Israeli democracy.” Those lines were removed from the website of Haaretz after the facts on the flotilla massacre have started coming out…
For such adherents to the Zionist myth and propaganda, the facts are not of much use, of course. For the rest of us, to accept the mythology and reject the reality is of grave danger. For Jews outside Israel, this is hardly the time to support the most extreme and racist government Israel has known; Such support can only lead to the growth of anti-semitism, of course; if Moslems and other continue to witness this incredible effort to deny not just the rights of the Palestinians, but the fabric of reality itself, then they will be justified in believing that Jewish communities outside Israel have themselves bought into the racism and inhumanity which lies behind Israel’s actions.
Nor will such a denial of reality help the Middle East conflict to be resolved. On the contrary, the absence of criticism will spur Israel forward, to wards the next war, be it in Iran or Lebanon. Both those wars are now being prepared, and openly discussed in the Hebrew press, seemingly without the slightest touch of irony. Such continued denial will only feed the irrationality that causes Israel, time and again, to buck against the slightest ‘danger’ of peace. If the Jewish communities are to playa constructive role towards the resolution of the Middle East conflict, this is their chance to stand up and be counted; to stand up clearly and say: “Not in my name!”. To stand up with Moslems against those continued atrocities, and for the immediate end of the Gaza Blockade; To stand for the Human and political rights of Palestinians; To stand against the illegal and immoral settlements, and to boycott their product. In short, to take a moral stand, but also a political one, which might lead to peace.
Is it not right to expect such a stand from Jewish communities?
Now, if you don’t believe me, read below, the two pieces of fiction published today in Haaretz and Yediot Ahronot. Enjoy.
A brutal ambush at sea: YNet
Ron Ben Yishai recounts bloody clash aboard Gaza-bound vessel: The lacking crowd-dispersal means, the brutal violence of ‘peace activists,’ and the attempt to bring down an IDF helicopter
Ron Ben-Yishai
Published: 05.31.10, 15:44 / Israel News
Our Navy commandoes fell right into the hands of the Gaza mission members. A few minutes before the takeover attempt aboard the Marmara got underway, the operation commander was told that 20 people were waiting on the deck where a helicopter was to deploy the first team of the elite Flotilla 13 unit. The original plan was to disembark on the top deck, and from there rush to the vessel’s bridge and order the Marmara’s captain to stop.
(Video) Defense minister, IDF chief of staff and Navy commander explain Israeli considerations following takeover of aid ships sailing to Gaza, which left at least 10 pro-Palestinian activists dead. ‘We regret the casualties, but soldiers were in danger’
Full story
Officials estimated that passengers will show slight resistance, and possibly minor violence; for that reason, the operation’s commander decided to bring the helicopter directly above the top deck. The first rope that soldiers used in order to descend down to the ship was wrested away by activists, most of them Turks, and tied to an antenna with the hopes of bringing the chopper down. However, Flotilla 13 fighters decided to carry on.
Navy commandoes slid down to the vessel one by one, yet then the unexpected occurred: The passengers that awaited them on the deck pulled out bats, clubs, and slingshots with glass marbles, assaulting each soldier as he disembarked. The fighters were nabbed one by one and were beaten up badly, yet they attempted to fight back.
However, to their misfortune, they were only equipped with paintball rifles used to disperse minor protests, such as the ones held in Bilin. The paintballs obviously made no impression on the activists, who kept on beating the troops up and even attempted to wrest away their weapons.
One soldier who came to the aid of a comrade was captured by the rioters and sustained severe blows. The commandoes were equipped with handguns but were told they should only use them in the face of life-threatening situations. When they came down from the chopper, they kept on shouting to each other “don’t shoot, don’t shoot,” even though they sustained numerous blows.
‘I saw the tip of a rifle’
The Navy commandoes were prepared to mostly encounter political activists seeking to hold a protest, rather than trained street fighters. The soldiers were told they were to verbally convince activists who offer resistance to give up, and only then use paintballs. They were permitted to use their handguns only under extreme circumstances.
The planned rush towards the vessel’s bridge became impossible, even when a second chopper was brought in with another crew of soldiers. “Throw stun grenades,” shouted Flotilla 13’s commander who monitored the operation. The Navy chief was not too far, on board a speedboat belonging to Flotilla 13, along with forces who attempted to climb into the back of the ship.
The forces hurled stun grenades, yet the rioters on the top deck, whose number swelled up to 30 by that time, kept on beating up about 30 commandoes who kept gliding their way one by one from the helicopter. At one point, the attackers nabbed one commando, wrested away his handgun, and threw him down from the top deck to the lower deck, 30 feet below. The soldier sustained a serious head wound and lost his consciousness.
Only after this injury did Flotilla 13 troops ask for permission to use live fire. The commander approved it: You can go ahead and fire. The soldiers pulled out their handguns and started shooting at the rioters’ legs, a move that ultimately neutralized them. Meanwhile, the rioters started to fire back at the commandoes.
“I saw the tip of a rifle sticking out of the stairwell,” one commando said. “He fired at us and we fired back. We didn’t see if we hit him. We looked for him later but couldn’t find him.” Two soldiers sustained gunshot wounds to their knee and stomach after rioters apparently fired at them using guns wrested away from troops.
2 errors
During the commotion, another commando was stabbed with a knife. In a later search aboard the Marmara, soldiers found caches of bats, clubs, knives, and slingshots used by the rioters ahead of the IDF takeover. It appeared the activists were well prepared for a fight.
Some passengers on the ship stood at the back and pounded the soldiers’ hands as they attempted to climb on board. Only after a 30-minute shootout and brutal assaults using clubs and knifes did commandoes manage to reach the bridge and take over the Marmara.
It appears that the error in planning the operation was the estimate that passengers were indeed political activists and members of humanitarian groups who seek a political provocation, but would not resort to brutal violence. The soldiers thought they will encounter Bilin-style violence; instead, they got Bangkok. The forces that disembarked from the helicopters were few; just dozens of troops – not enough to contend with the large group awaiting them.
The second error was that commanders did not address seriously enough the fact that a group of men were expecting the soldiers on the top deck. Had they addressed this more seriously, they may have hurled tear-gas grenades and smoke grenades from the helicopter to create a screen that would have enabled them to carry out their mission, without the fighters falling right into the hands of the rioters, who severely assaulted them.
Israeli commandos: Gaza flotilla crew tried to lynch us: Haaretz
Israel tows Gaza flotilla to Ashdod after at least 10 activists killed in clashes with navy; IDF says 2 commandos seriously wounded as troops tried to board.
At least 10 people were killed and several more wounded after the Israel Navy troops opened fire on the six-ship flotilla. Unofficial reports put the death toll at between 14 and 20.
The IDF confirmed that at least seven navy commandos had been wounded, at least two of them seriously, in a fight which apparently broke out after activists tried to seize their weapons.
The commandos, who intercepted the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara after it ignored orders to turn back, said they encountered violent resistance from activists armed with sticks and knives. According to the commandos, the activists threw one of the soldiers from the upper deck to the lower after they boarded.
An Israeli military spokesman said some of the commandos were equipped with paintball guns but the non-lethal weapons were not enough against activists who charged in with batons.
“They had pistols with live ammunition as back-up, to defend themselves,” he said. The IDF said it had confiscated two pistols from the boat.
One of the commandos told reporters he descended by rope from a helicopter onto one of the six ships in the convoy and was immediately attacked by a group of people waiting for them.
“They beat us with metal sticks and knives,” he said. “There was live fire at some point against us.”
A Reuters cameraman on the Israeli navy ship Kidon close to the six-vessel aid convoy said commanders monitoring the operation were surprised by the strong resistance put up by the pro-Palestinian activists.
One of the commandos said some of the soldiers were stripped of their helmets and equipment and a number were tossed from the top deck to a lower deck and had been forced to jump into the sea to escape.
A left-wing activist on board the Gaza flotilla holding a knife after Israel Navy commandos boarded their ship on May 31, 2010.
“They jumped me, hit me with clubs and bottles and stole my rifle,” one of the commandos said. “I pulled out my pistol and had no choice but to shoot.”
The soldiers said they were forced to open fire after the activists struck one of their comrades in the head and trampled on him. A senior IDF field commander ordered the soldiers then to respond with fire, a decision which the commandos said received full backing the military echelon.
The IDF said its rules of engagement allowed troops to open fire in what it called a “life-threatening situation”.
“Navy fighters took control of six ships that tried to violate the naval blockade [of the Gaza Strip],” said a statement from the IDF. “During the takeover, the soldiers encountered serious physical violence by the protesters, who attacked them with live fire.”
Elite troops from Shayetet 13, a naval commando unit, boarded the protest boats at around 4:00 A.M. Earlier Monday, Al Jazeera reported that the Gaza aid flotilla had changed course to avoid a confrontation with Israeli warships.
The Israeli naval vessels reportedly made contact earlier with the six-ship flotilla, which is carrying 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid and supplies to Gaza.
Some 700 pro-Palestinian activists were on the boats, including 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire of Northern Ireland, European legislators.
The Israeli navy was operating under the assumption that the activists manning the boats would not heed their calls to turn around, and Israeli troops were prepared to board the ships and steer them away from the Gaza shores and toward the Israeli port city of Ashdod.
Huwaida Arraf, one of the flotilla organizers, said the six-ship flotilla began the journey from international waters off the coast of Cyprus on Sunday afternoon after two days of delays. According to organizers, the flotilla was expected to reach Gaza, about 400 kilometers away, on Monday afternoon, and two more ships would follow in a second wave.
The flotilla was fully prepared for the different scenarios that might arise, and organizers were hopeful that Israeli authorities would do what’s right and not stop the convoy, one of the organizers said.
Gaza flotilla docks in Ashdod hours after deadly raid: Haaretz
Israel detains at least 32 activists upon arrival, dozens hospitalized; Turkish-flagged ship stormed by Israel Navy last to arrive at port.
The Turkish-flagged ship carrying international activists bringing humanitarian aid to Gaza docked at the Ashdod port on Monday evening, nearly 16 hours after it was stormed by Israel Navy commandos in what turned into a deadly raid.
The Mavi Marmara was the last of the six-ship flotilla to be towed into the port, and its 600 passengers were kept on board while Israel Police sappers conducted a thorough examination of the vessel.
Nine activists aboard the ship were killed and several more wounded in the clashes that erupted with Israel Navy troops at 4 A.M. on Monday. Eight of the Israeli soldiers were wounded, two of them seriously.
The other ships were towed to port over the course of the afternoon, with dozens of the activists detained for refusing to sign Israel’s deportation orders. Only some 25 of the activists agreed to the order.
Israel Prisons Services incarcerated at least 32 of the activists who were aboard the Gaza aid flotilla, at least 16 of them for refusing to identify themselves.
At least two of the activists who were wounded on the ship were detained after refusing treatment at the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. Some 34 of the foreigners were treated hospitals across Israel for their wounds.
Israel has said it will deport the roughly 700 activists in the flotilla. But those who refuse to cooperate will be jailed.
