An Israeli reporter on the attack by the “activists” the AP probably won’t give you:
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.
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.
Read it all.
It’s extremely heartening that Israel is refusing to apologize and that the decision was even taken to seriously defend the soldiers lives – after all it is conceivable that Israel would have sacrificed its soldiers lives in order to avoid bad publicity, as it has in the past – but as usual Israel’s diplomatic response is wimpy. Instead of reacting Israel needs to recall its ambassador from Turkey and warn Turkey of “serious consequences” for what amounts to Turkish state-sponsered terrorism, and harshly condemn Turkeys role in supporting violence against Israel, and express serious shock and rage that Turkey would do this. Then Israel needs to summon the French ambassador for a reprimand and demand why France condemned Israel when the men on the ship opened fire on the troops and used extreme violence, etc,.
Israel needs to go on the offensive diplomatically – a HUGE mistake was to express “sorrow over loss of life” – sorrow that violent terrorists were killed? Why? What kind of message does this send?