[THS] The hijacking of the truth: Film evidence destroyed

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

"...But one thing is fast becoming clear – many of the dead were shot multiple times
at point-blank range. One was a journalist taking photographs. "A man was shot ...
between the eyebrows, which indicates that it was not an attack that took place from
self-defence," Hassan Ghani, a passenger, said in an account posted on YouTube.
"The soldier had time to set up the shot." Mattias Gardell, a Swedish activist, told the
TT news bureau: "The Israelis committed premeditated murder ... Two people were
killed by shots in the forehead, one was shot in the back of the head and one in the
chest."

The hijacking of the truth: Film evidence 'destroyed'

Protesters say Israel had an assassination list. Israel says soldiers fired only in self-
defence. So what really happened on 31 May? Catrina Stewart reports

Sunday, 6 June 2010

Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara don lifejackets after
ERHAN SEVENLER / AP

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/the-hijacking-of-the-truth-film-evidence-destroyed-1992517.html


Turkish activists aboard the Mavi Marmara don lifejackets after they are warned that
Israeli naval ships are approaching; nine protesters died in the commando attack the
next morning

Jamal Elshayyal, a journalist with al-Jazeera, woke with a start to the opening salvos
of an Israeli assault that would transform the decks of the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish
vessel bound for Gaza, into a bloodbath.

From the ship's position deep in international waters, satellite images of Israeli
speedboats and helicopters approaching the vessel were beamed across the globe
before communications were abruptly cut off, leaving the events on the Marmara to
unfold away from the eyes of the world.

Six days after the bloody assault that left nine foreign protesters, mainly Turks, dead,
nobody can recount with any conviction precisely what happened that night. The
convoy of ships, whose passengers included writers, politicians and journalists, had
been expected for weeks, with organisers loudly broadcasting their plans to run
Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip and draw international attention to the situation
there.

From the beginning, it was clear that Israeli forces were concentrating in their largest
numbers on the Marmara, a ship carrying some 550 peace activists. The remaining
five boats were much smaller and easily commandeered. After the Marmara was
subdued, the passengers silenced, and their recording equipment confiscated, Israel
disseminated a carefully choreographed account of the events that night that would
dominate the airwaves for the first 48 hours.

Only as eyewitnesses, traumatised by their experiences, started to return to their
home countries, were serious questions raised about the veracity of the Israeli version
of events. Israeli commandos initiated the attack on the Marmara with stun grenades,
paintballs and rubber-cased steel bullets. They were met with water hoses as the
ship's passengers tried to form a defensive cordon to prevent soldiers from reaching
the wheelhouse. Next, the helicopters started their approach, hovering overhead as
they tried to disgorge commandos.

From the other ships, passengers looked on helplessly: "The worst thing was seeing
the helicopter come up because I knew they were going to invade," said Ewa
Jasiewicz, a 32-year-old organiser. "You could hear the screams when they started
shooting ... We wanted to stop and go back but there wouldn't have been anything
we could have done."

From the moment the helicopters arrived, the sequence of events becomes confused.
The dizzying number of claims and counter-claims serves only to present an
incomplete account of a military operation that went badly, badly wrong. More than
1.7 million viewers have pored over the edited YouTube footage posted by the Israeli
navy since Wednesday. In the dramatic clip, commandos rappel down on to the deck
from a helicopter, where they are met by angry activists armed with iron bars and
sticks.

This is a critical point, for Israel has rallied domestic opinion on the crucial claim that
its soldiers dropped into a meticulously planned riot for which they were completely
unprepared. Panicked, they acted in self-defence after they landed, shooting only
those who threatened them.

The video is problematic, though. The images of angry protesters are striking, but
they lack context. What happened before? What happened next? Had the soldiers
started shooting when they descended to the deck? The only account offered by the
Israelis of what happened next is left to Staff Sergeant S, a commando who claims
he shot six of the protesters.

The last of 15 to arrive on the deck, he said he saw that two of his colleagues had
gunshot wounds. Pushing others into a protective cordon around the injured soldiers,
he shot at the protesters to force them to fall back. It's a neat account, but several
eyewitness accounts tell a very different story.

Mr Elshayyal, a reporter for the Arab channel al-Jazeera, was standing to one side of
the ship and had a view of the front and back of the vessel when the fighting
started. By his account, soldiers fired down on the protesters from the helicopters
before an Israeli soldier had even set foot on the ship. A man next to him was shot
through the top of his head, dying instantly.

"What I saw were shots being fired from the helicopter above and moments later
from below – from the ships," Mr Elshayyal said. "As far as I am concerned, it's a lie
to say they only started shooting on deck."

At least two other eyewitnesses saw soldiers firing from above the ships before they
landed on the Marmara's deck. It is possible that this is what prompted the fierce
resistance to the soldiers when they dropped down. Several passengers recount how
organisers urged their peers to stop hitting the soldiers, aware of how it would harm
their claim to be peaceful protesters.

Others on the ship claim they raised a white flag, but say that it was ignored. They
also used a loudspeaker to reiterate their message of surrender and requested that
the injured be taken off the ship to get medical assistance. Again, they were ignored.

At some point early on, the activists dragged three, possibly four, injured soldiers to a
lower deck, either to keep as hostages or for their own safety. It was then, several
passengers say, that the situation quickly deteriorated. Israel has insisted that the
protesters took two of the soldiers' pistols and used them, but others claim the pistols
were taken away to prove that Israel planned to use live rounds.

Below, the protesters rummaged through captured soldiers' belongings and claimed
to unearth a document that they allege is a list of people Israel intended to
assassinate. The booklet, written in Hebrew and in English, contained some
photographs of passengers on the Marmara, including the leader of IHH, the Turkish
charity that provided two of the ships, an 88-year-old priest and Ra'ad Salah, head of
the Northern Branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, Mr Elshayyal said.

A military spokesman, Lt Col Avital Leibowitz, insisted soldiers acted in self-defence
and that she "was not aware" of any list. But one thing is fast becoming clear – many
of the dead were shot multiple times at point-blank range. One was a journalist
taking photographs. "A man was shot ... between the eyebrows, which indicates that
it was not an attack that took place from self-defence," Hassan Ghani, a passenger,
said in an account posted on YouTube. "The soldier had time to set up the shot."
Mattias Gardell, a Swedish activist, told the TT news bureau: "The Israelis committed
premeditated murder ... Two people were killed by shots in the forehead, one was
shot in the back of the head and one in the chest."

When Israeli troops had subdued the ship, they rounded up the passengers, bound
their wrists, in some cases forcing activists into stress positions, and prevented them
from using toilets. Mr Elshayyal said he was given just three sips of water before he
was taken off the ship more than 24 hours later.

Their ordeal, of course, was not yet over. Accused of entering Israel illegally, the
captives were transferred to an Israeli prison, where many were held in cramped
cells and denied phone calls. Furious, Turkey sent three planes to transport the
activists out of Israel, threatening to sever all diplomatic ties if they were not all
released.

Meanwhile, much of the video footage confiscated from Marmara passengers remains
undisclosed, and Israel has sought to undermine some eyewitness accounts by
alleging some of the passengers were terrorist sympathisers bent on martyrdom.

Questions remain unanswered on both sides. But without a full and transparent
airing of all the evidence, the truth of that dreadful night on the Marmara may never
come to light.

In the meantime, the organisers say they will seek again and again to breach Israel's
defences. Scottish protester Ali El-Awaisi said: "We sent six ships this time. Next time
it will be 30 ships."