HAIFA: The Turkish passenger ship at the centre of the violence during a deadly Israeli navy raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla was towed out of a port in Israel on Thursday, a media correspondent said. The Mavi Marmara was towed out of Haifa by a large Turkish tug boat which had been sent to collect the ferry. Two other boats which were also commandeered by the navy during the May 31 raid were also due to be towed out of the southern port of Ashdod on Thursday, the defence ministry said, but it was not immediately clear when. The move to return the ships comes after a decision by the political leadership following a request from Ankara, the ministry said in a statement. “Three Turkish towing ships will arrive in Israel today. Their crews will receive three vessels anchored in Israel along with the personal equipment that was aboard them,” the ministry said, without saying when the handover would take place. All three were part of a six-ship flotilla, which tried to run Israel’’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip on May 31. It was not immediately clear whether the remaining three boats were still docked in Israel. The Rachel Corrie aid boat was also believed to be being held at an Israeli port, although legal moves were under way to have it released. Israeli navy commandos stormed all six ships in a botched raid which descended into violence and resulted in the deaths of nine Turkish activists, sparking a diplomatic crisis with Ankara. Troops involved in the raid say they resorted to lethal force only after being attacked when they rappelled from helicopters onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara, which was carrying more than 600 passengers at the time.
Written on August 6, 2010 | Posted in
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JERUSALEM: Israel hopes its decision to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into a deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla will improve relations with its once close ally Turkey, Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor said on Tuesday. The choice to cooperate with the U.N. investigation, which was announced on Monday, is “primarily meant, to my knowledge, for Turkey and Israel to find a way to bring relations back to a better place,” Meridor told Israel Army Radio.
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said Friday that groups seeking to deliver aid to Gaza should do so by land, after Israel warned it would intercept two ships seeking to break a blockade of the Palestinian enclave. “There are established routes for supplies to enter by land. That is the way aid should be delivered to the people of Gaza,” UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told a press briefing. “Our stated preference has been and remains that aid should be delivered by established routes, particularly at a sensitive time in indirect proximity (peace) talks between Palestinians and Israelis,” he added. He made the comments after Israel served notice its forces would prevent a planned Lebanese aid flotilla from reaching the Gaza Strip. “We have received information in recent days about a plan to send a new flotilla to break the blockade around Gaza,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said on Israeli television.
TEL AVIV: An Israeli military inquiry into the naval raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla says commandos were under-prepared and mistakes were made at a senior level. The report says the operation suffered from flawed intelligence-gathering and inadequate planning. But it also praised the commandos involved and found the use of force had been the only way to stop the flotilla. Eight Turks and one Turkish-American died in the naval raid in international waters, which provoked a major outcry. The report criticised the operation’’s planners for not having a back-up plan in the event of violence. But it also said the mission had not been a failure and did not recommend any dismissals. It said there had been a lack of co-ordination between military and intelligence bodies, and preparations for the 31 May takeover of the ships had been inadequate. As they dropped from helicopters on to the deck of one vessel, the Mavi Marmara, Israeli forces were met with a violent reception, from some of those on board who were armed with clubs and knives and at least one gun, found the report. Presenting the findings to media in Tel Aviv, retired general Giora Eiland, who chaired the investigating panel, had both criticism and praise. “In this inquiry we found that there were some professional mistakes regarding both the intelligence and the decision-making process and some of the operational mistakes,” he said.
ANKARA: Turkey’’s Foreign Minister and an Israeli cabinet minister met secretly in Brussels to discuss ways of overcoming the deep crisis in bilateral ties, a Turkish official said Thursday. The meeting between Ahmet Davutoglu and Israeli Trade Minister Benjamin Ben Eliezer “took place yesterday in Brussels upon a request by Israel,” the official, who asked not to be named, told foreign news agency. “We had already conveyed a note to Israel explaining our expectations from them. Those expectations were repeated at the meeting,” the official said. It was the first meeting on a ministerial level between the two countries since Israeli commandos raided a Turkish ship leading an aid flotilla to the Gaza Strip in defiance of an Israeli blockade on May 31.
Written on July 1, 2010 | Posted in
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JERUSALEM: Israel’’s army chief vowed Tuesday to prevent Lebanese and Iranian aid ships from entering the Gaza Strip, saying the coastal enclave would not become an Iranian port, media reported. “We have the right to inspect and prevent the flow of arms into Gaza,” the Ynet news website quoted Israeli chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi as saying. “We can”t let Gaza become an Iranian port,” he said speaking at a Jewish seminary in northern Israel. Earlier Tuesday Iranian Red Crescent officials said an Iranian aid ship is to leave the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas for a 14-day journey to Gaza at the end of this week, the ISNA news agency reported. Lebanese civilian groups are also planning to send two ships to the Israeli-blockaded Palestinian territory via Cyprus. “If a flotilla comes from Lebanon we will deal with it. If they are peaceful we will deal with it peacefully, if not we will deal with it as we need to,” Ashkenazi said. The planned Iranian and Lebanese aid shipments come after a May 31 Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla that left nine Turkish pro-Palestinian activists dead and sparked international outrage. Israel has eased the blockade on Gaza in the wake of the incident. Israel has argued the closures — imposed when one of its soldiers was seized by Gaza militants in a deadly June 2006 raid and tightened a year later when Hamas took over — are needed to contain the Islamist movement.
Written on June 23, 2010 | Posted in
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GAZA: Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak renewed his country’’s warning on Monday against any new activist aid flotilla that might try to sail into Gaza from Lebanon. “About the coming flotilla, we”ve heard in the media that some organisation, probably backed by a terror organisation, (is) once again trying to send a vessel into Gaza,” Barak told reporters after meeting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. “I should tell everyone that we think it’’s a bit irresponsible to do that,” he said. “It’’s well known that we ask all of them, as we asked the previous flotilla, to join us and go through (the Israeli port) Ashdod and we cannot accept someone who will try to just sail directly to Gaza.” Barak said Lebanon would be “responsible for whatever vessels or ships coming from its ports and responsible for whatever people are taken with them and boarding those ships”. The comments represented the latest warning from Israel over any effort to circumvent its blockade of Gaza despite international pressure in the wake of a May 31 Israeli commando raid that killed nine Turkish activists aboard a flotilla of aid ships on a blockade-busting bid. Israeli media have said that the Lebanese Shi”ite group Hezbollah might be planning to send materials into Gaza, which is controlled by Hamas, the Palestinian territory’’s Islamist rulers. Israel argues that Hamas is seeking weapons from the aid missions. Hezbollah on Friday denied reports it was backing an all-women aid flotilla planning to sail from Lebanon to Gaza, saying it did not want to give Israel a pretext to attack the activists. Barak and the UN chief also discussed plans for an international inquiry into the May 31 raid, but the Israeli official said it may be premature. “I shared with the secretary general our views about his expectation to establish an international inquiry into the recent incident and we expressed our view that for the time being, as long as those new flotillas are in preparation, it’’s probably better to leave it on the shelf for a certain time,” Barak said. “We are moving ahead with our independent investigation which we believe is clearly independent, reliable, credible and should be allowed to work,” he said.
Written on June 22, 2010 | Posted in
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JERUSALEM: Israel told the United Nations on Friday it reserved its right to use “all necessary means” to stop ships that it said planned to try to sail from Lebanon to bring aid to Gaza, blockaded by the Jewish state. In a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and to the Security Council, Israeli Ambassador Gabriela Shalev also called on the Lebanese government to prevent the ships from leaving. An international furor erupted after the Israeli navy stormed a six-ship aid flotilla heading for Gaza on May 31, killing eight Turks and a Turkish-American on board. Israel said its commandos acted in self-defense after being attacked. Following the outcry, Israel said on Thursday it was easing its land blockade of the Gaza Strip, which for the past three years has been controlled by Palestinian Hamas militants. But it said the sea blockade would continue. Shalev said it appeared a small number of ships planned to sail from Lebanon and that while the organizers said they wished to take aid to Gaza, “the true nature of their actions remains dubious.” Organizers had said they wished to become “martyrs” and there was a “possible link” to the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, whose leader Hassan Nasrallah had called on Lebanese citizens to take part in such flotillas, Shalev said. “As a result, Israel cannot exclude the possibility that terrorists or arms will be smuggled onboard the ships in question,” the Israeli envoy wrote. Given the conflict between Israel and Hamas and the state of hostility between Lebanon and the Jewish state, “Israel reserves its right under international law to use all necessary means to prevent these ships from violating the existing naval blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip,” she said. There were “appropriate mechanisms” for sending aid to Gaza, Shalev said, calling on Lebanon to “demonstrate responsibility and to prevent these boats from departing to the Gaza Strip.” She also called on the international community to use its influence to stop the boats departing and to discourage their nationals from taking part in the action.
LONDON: Amnesty International criticised Israel’’s planned internal probe of the deadly raid on a Gaza aid flotilla, saying it would lack transparency and was unlikely to ensure accountability. The Israeli committee, which will include two foreign observers, was formed to conduct an investigation into the legal aspects of the May 31 operation in which commandos killed nine Turkish activists and wounded many more. “The format of this government-appointed commission represents a disappointment and a missed opportunity,” Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’’s director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. “The commission looks to be neither independent nor sufficiently transparent, the two international observers may be denied access to crucial information and the commission’’s findings may not be used in future prosecutions,” Smart said. The panel will be headed by retired supreme court judge Yaakov Tirkel, and will include Nobel Peace Prize winner David Trimble from Northern Ireland and Ken Watkin, former judge advocate general of the Canadian armed forces. The two could also be denied access to information if it was “almost certain to cause substantial harm to national security or to the state’’s foreign relations.” “The processes of the commission must be open, transparent and allow access to all information sources,” said Smart. “It should not allow the political considerations of the Israeli government to determine which of its findings are made public.”
Israel’s lethal attack on Gaza aid flotilla on 31st of May has once again put Israel in the realm of Zionist pugnacity that has really shaken the global conscience on human rights. Like such other e…
Written on June 16, 2010 | Posted in
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