Turkey rejects Israeli panel's findings on the Gaza incident Topic: turkey, israel, gaza strip. biod
by Nasra Ismail, BBC News Middle-East Desk, for the BBC's Biodun Iginla
JERUSALEM—An Israeli raid against a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship in May that killed nine passengers was legal under international law, an Israeli commission of inquiry said in a report released Sunday.
The commission, headed by retired Supreme Court judge Yaakov Turkel, ruled that Israel's continuing land, sea and air blockade of the Gaza Strip also complies with international law because Israel is effectively in a state of war with the territory's rulers, who are from the Palestinian Hamas movement.
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced the findings. "In my judgment there is no value or credibility to this report," he told reporters in Ankara, according to Anadolu Ajansi, Turkey's state news agency. Israeli human-rights groups also rejected the report's findings that the continuing blockade of Gaza is legal due to military necessity.
The actions by Israeli soldiers' were "lawful and in conformity with international law," the commission said in the report summary. "When examining the operation as a whole it seems that the soldiers did not overreact."
The commission will publish the second part of its findings in coming months, focusing on Israel's methods for investigating itself and government decision making in the runup to the botched raid.
Turkey's own commission investigating the incident issued a response Sunday to the Israeli findings. The Turkish board said in the statement it was "surprised, appalled and dismayed that the national inquiry process in Israel has resulted in the exoneration of the Israeli armed forces despite all the facts that have also been confirmed by the International Fact-Finding Mission" set up by the United Nations Human Rights Council and reported by that panel last fall.
The Turkish commission said its preliminary findings found that both the Israeli blockade of Gaza and its boarding of a ship in international waters were illegal. The Turkish panel sent its interim report to the United Nations Secretary-General in September.
The killings on board the Mavi Marmara vessel caused popular outrage and rare unity in Turkey, which has demanded Israel apologize for the deaths before damaged relations between the two countries can be restored. Israel has declined, although in recent months the two sides have taken steps to smooth over differences. The new Israeli report appears unlikely to help those efforts.
The investigations follow the May 31 raid by Israeli commandoes on a six-ship aid flotilla carrying 700 passengers headed for Gaza with food, medicine and other humanitarian aid. After seizing control of the first five ships without fatalities, soldiers rappelled from helicopters onto the largest of the ships, the 590-passenger Mavi Marmara, where passengers affiliated with a Turkish Islamic aid organization known as the IHH attacked them with chains, pipes, knives, and other light weapons, according to eyewitness accounts and supported by videos of the raid taken by israeli soldiers.
In the ensuing fight, eight Turkish citizens and one Turkish-American were killed, and 55 wounded. Nine Israeli soldiers also were wounded. The incident plunged Israel into one of its worst diplomatic crises in decades. Washington demanded Israel ease the blockade of Gaza, which Israel has taken some steps to comply with, while Turkey withdrew its ambassador from Tel Aviv and cancelled three joint military exercises.
In addition to Mr. Turkel, the Israeli commission included three other Israelis and two international observers, David Trimble, a 1998 Nobel Peace Prize winner from Northern Ireland, and Canada's former military prosecutor Brig. Gen. Ken Watkin. Both Mr. Trimble and Mr. Watkin, though not allowed to vote on the commission recommendations, endorsed the findings Sunday. A fifth Israeli member of the commission, Shabtai Rosenne, died at the age of 93 in September in the middle of hearings.
The findings by the Turkel commission largely support the findings of an Israeli military inquiry last July. The military report criticized the poor planning and faulty intelligence that preceded the raid, but praised the "heroic" commandoes who carried it out.
Israeli human-rights groups denounced the commission's defense of the Gaza blockade that justified the raid in the first place. Court documents released by the government and a recent Wikileaks cable both supported allegations that the Israeli blockade on Gaza was aimed at depriving Hamas of political support by depriving Gazans of all but the bare necessities, in addition to stopping military hardware.
"International law allows restriction of passage of goods and people for concrete security reasons," said Sari Bashi, the director of, Gisha, an Israeli human-rights group that calls for an end to the siege of Gaza. "Turning factory workers in Gaza to unemployed dependents so they will get angry at the regime is not a concrete military purpose."
Israel has relaxed the siege since the botched flotilla raid and now allows most consumer goods into the territory, but it still restricts exports and the movement of people.
The findings of the Israeli commission will be sent to a U.N. secretary-general panel looking at the incident, led by former New Zealand Prime Minister Geoffrey Palmer. The U.N. panel isn't conducting its own investigation, but is relying on the inquiries carried out by Israel and Turkey.
U.N. spokesman Martin Nesirky confirmed the secretary-general panel received the report. "As you know, to help complete their important mandate, it is essential for the panel to review material provided by both sides, Israel and Turkey," he said. There is no indication when this U.N. panel will report.
An American of Turkish origin was one of the nine activists killed during Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla, a U.S. official said Thursday.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said the victim was Furkan Dogan, 19 years old, and that U.S. authorities in Turkey had met with Mr. Dogan's father to express condolences and to offer U.S. consular services, the Associated Press reported. She added that two other American citizens had been injured in raid and in a subsequent protest and the U.S. was seeking information about all three from Israel, AP reported.
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Injured activist Almahti Alharati is taken to a hospital in Turkey after arriving from Israel. Hundreds of activists were flown back to Turkey early Thursday morning.
"Protecting the welfare of American citizens is a fundamental responsibility of our government and one that we take very seriously,'' she told reporters. "We are in constant contact with the Israeli government attempting to obtain more information about our citizens.''
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Mr. Dogan, who was born in Troy, N.Y., and held dual U.S-Turkish citizenship, had died of "gunshot wounds" but he declined to confirm reports that he had been shot multiple times in the head, AP reported. Mr. Crowley said U.S. consular officials had seen Mr. Dogan's body in a morgue in Israel before it was taken to Turkey but had not known he was a dual citizen at the time.
Mr. Dogan's father told Turkey's state-run Anatolia News Agency that he had identified his son's body and that he had been shot through the forehead. Still, he said, the family was not sad because they believed Mr. Dogan had died with honor.
"I feel my son has been blessed with heaven," he said. "I am hoping to be a father worthy of my son.''
Senior U.S. officials said Thursday that the Obama administration would "redouble" its efforts to get Israel to ease the siege on the Gaza strip. But these officials indicated the White House wasn't going to ask Prime Minister Netanyahu to formally end the blockade.
Rather, these officials said they believed there were ways to accelerate the introduction of important goods into Gaza, such as construction materials and food, while still allowing Israel to guard against the smuggling of weapons.
"We don't think it's in Israel's interest to maintain the status quo," Mr. Crowley said. But he added: "Given the history and reality, Israel has a very legitimate interest to inspect and control the flow of materials into Gaza."
Mrs. Clinton said no decision had yet been made about how to handle Mr. Dogan's death but renewed calls for Israel to "conduct a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation that conforms to international standards and gets to all the facts surrounding this tragic event."
"We are open to different ways to assuring that it is a credible investigation, including urging appropriate international participation," she told AP.
In Istanbul, about 10,000 mourners buried eight of the activists, with a further service due for a Turkish journalist who also was killed on the Mavi Marmara.
The crowd prayed before eight Turkish and Palestinian flag-draped coffins lined up in a row outside Istanbul's Fatih mosque in a traditional service for the dead, AP reported.
"Our friends have been massacred,'' Bulent Yildirim, the head of the Islamic charity group IHH that organized the flotilla, told the crowd.
Earlier in the day, hundreds of humanitarian-aid activists detained by Israeli commandos on their Gaza-bound flotilla returned to Istanbul, with crowds waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israeli slogans. Some of those returning Thursday said more had died but were missing. They were unable, however, to name any of the missing.
By 3 a.m., as the activists boarded buses on the airport tarmac, a jubilant crowd of several thousand Turks had gathered to meet them, pushing through police cordons to reach the airport perimeter fence.
"Turkey is proud of you," "God is great" and "Zionist dogs will pay for this," the crowd chanted.
An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said nine bodies were on the planes, Israel's first indication, since the raid to halt the flotilla turned violent early Monday morning, that the dead were from Turkey. According to several news reports, one of those killed was a Turkish-American carrying a U.S. passport. U.S. officials had not confirmed the reports.
Activists on board a Gaza-bound flotilla return home to cheering crowds. Video courtesy of Reuters.
Turkey's energy minister, Taner Yildiz told reporters in Istanbul that Turkey was suspending all consideration of state to state energy and water projects with Israel, according to the Turkish IHA news agency. Mr. Yildiz said projects would be suspended until after relations with with Israel were normalized, the agency said. He named one project to deliver 50 million cubic meters of water per year, and another to extend the projected Blue Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Turkey to Israel.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned Israel for the incident, and his foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, had said early Wednesday that Turkey would review its ties with Israel if all Turks weren't released by the end of the day.
"If the Israelis do not lift the embargo on Gaza, we will form much larger flotillas in cooperation with NGOs from Europe and all over the world and we will send them both by sea and through Egypt, said Bulent Yildirim, leader of the Turkish Humanitarian Relief Foundation, or IHH, which owns the Mavi Marmara, in a speech from an open-topped bus. Mr. Yildirim was on the Mavi Marmara when the Israeli commandos boarded.
Most of the activists were whisked away upon arrival in their buses without stopping. IHH organizers said they were being taken for medical checks.
The group of IHH leaders and foreign-language speakers that stopped to soak up the crowd's adulation and speak to the media appeared tired but victorious. They had conflicting accounts of what happened. Abdi Mahdi, a 30-year-old freelance photographer from Walthamstow London, said he was praying on the Mavi Marmara's deck with about 100 others when the Israelis attacked.
Mr. Mahdi first said they had all scattered "to look after each other" when the Israeli commandos pulled along side in dinghies and fired tear gas canisters on board without warning. He then acknowledged that the activists fought "with whatever we could find," adding that it was in self-defense. Mr. Mahdi spoke alongside several other Britons who held flowers they were given and punched the air before the jubilant crowd.
Gene St. Onge, a 63-year-old structural engineer from Oakland, Calif., was on the ship Sfendoni, behind the Mavi Marmara. Nobody fought on his boat, he said, but they tried to resist by blocking the wheelhouse with their bodies and holding onto the wheel. Israeli commandos pushed him down several times, Mr. Onge said, sporting a cut in his forehead. He said one person was hit in the head with a rifle butt while the ship's Greek captain suffered a burst ear drum and other injuries.
Mr. Onge said he saw the start of the fight on the Mavi Marmara. Eight to ten commandos standing in each small boat sought to scale the sides of the ship, but were driven away with fire hoses and objects tossed at them from above, he said. He said he wasn't able to see the rest.
Asked why people fought only on the Mavi Marmara, he said: "Well, they are Turkish."
"Feelings are stronger here," he explained, nodding at the roaring crowd. "Some might say they went too far, but they were protecting their boat in international waters. The point is, who attacked first? We were not spies, we had no weapons."
He said the detainees were treated roughly, given little food and allowed little sleep. They were questioned repeatedly by Israeli officers, he said. "Initially I think they were trying to flush out if we were Al Qaeda or something, but when it became obvious we weren't it was just a form of collective punishment I think.
Mr. Netanyahu, in a statement broadcast from his office, defended the operation Wednesday, saying terrorists affiliated with Hamas were to blame for the violence on board the Turkish-owned passenger ship, the Mavi Marmara. "This was not the Love Boat, it was the Hate Boat," he said.
The Free Gaza Movement, the Cyprus-based lead organizer of the flotilla, which was primarily manned and funded by the Turkish IHH charity, rejected the statement, saying Turkey had vetted all passengers to make sure none had ties to extremist groups and an independent security firm had searched the ships for weapons.
Israel's cabinet on Tuesday debated pressing charges against activists for allegedly attacking Israeli commandos after they descended from a helicopter onto the ship, but decided instead to send them home, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor.
Israel's High Court of Justice considered a petition Wednesday to reverse the decision to forgo criminal procedures, but the petition failed to halt the deportation of activists.
In a statement to the High Court, Israel Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein defended the expulsion, arguing "public, security and diplomatic interests prevail'' over the need for a criminal investigation.
Meanwhile, Israel continued to transfer aid from the detained boats into the Gaza Strip, but alleged that Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the territory, was impeding shipments.
The United Nations Security Council called early Tuesday for an "impartial investigation" into the deadly events. While Israel's top ally, the U.S., hasn't backed an international investigation into the incident, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said the U.S. was open to "international participation" in the probe of what happened in the Mediterranean Sea.
The aid flotilla and the outcome of the raid have put Israel under heightened pressure at home and abroad to review its three-year blockade of the Gaza Strip. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday repeated a call for an end to the blockade.
Israel and Egypt began restricting the flow of goods into and out of Gaza in 2007, after Hamas seized control. Critics of the blockade say it has failed to weaken the Hamas government and has kept out crucial aid and basic materials, a claim Israel denies.
Mr. Netanyahu defended the blockade of Gaza Wednesday, saying it is needed to prevent missile attacks against Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. He said the aim of the flotilla was to break the blockade, not to bring aid to Gaza. "If the blockade had been broken, it would have been followed by dozens, hundreds of boats," he said. "Each boat could carry hundreds of missiles."
Egypt, which criticized the Israeli raid, opened its border with Gaza to humanitarian aid Tuesday and Wednesday.
Activists on an Irish ship are planning to test the blockade again in the coming days. Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen appealed to Israel to let the ship deliver its aid cargo to Gaza—but he conceded on Wednesday that supplies of concrete on board would pose a particular stumbling block because Israel considers it of military use.
The ship was supposed to join the flotilla that Israeli commandos intercepted Monday, but was delayed by mechanical problems.
Funerals take place in Istanbul for Gaza ship activists
Emotions are running high in Turkey at funerals for nine activists, all Turkish or of Turkish origin, killed in Israel's raid on the Gaza aid flotilla.
The bodies were flown from Israel to Istanbul, along with more than 450 activists, to a heroes' welcome.
Israel has said there is no need for an international inquiry into the incident, insisting its own will meet the "highest international standards".
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) voted earlier to set up an investigation.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said his troops had no choice but to stop the ships.
He argued the flotilla had been aiming not to deliver humanitarian aid to Gazans, but to break Israel's blockade.
It was Israel's duty to prevent rockets and other weapons being smuggled into Gaza to Hamas by Iran and others, he said.
Turkey, one of Israel's few allies in the Muslim world, recalled its ambassador after the incident on Monday.
'Barbarism and oppression'
Its President, Abdullah Gul, said relations between the two countries would "never be the same".
The prayers for the dead before the funerals were not just about sadness and loss, though there was plenty of that.
This was a political event as well.
The mood of the crowd echoed remarks made by the Turkish president, who said that an irreparable and deep scar had been left in Turkey's relations with Israel.
The Israelis and what they did were denounced repeatedly.
Israel's version that its men opened fire in self-defence is utterly rejected here.
At the end of the ceremony the dead were taken away to be buried close to their homes.
For Turks, it is not just that civilians died. The raid is seen as an attack on their country's honour and sovereignty and, like the Gaza war and the Iraq invasion, it is detaching some Turks at least from old friends in the West and pushing them closer to the Muslim Middle East.
"This incident has left an irreparable and deep scar" on relations, he told reporters in Ankara.
In a fiery speech at Istanbul airport, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc accused Israel of "piracy" and "barbarism and oppression".
Crowds of people, some wearing Palestinian-style scarves, gathered in the city to meet the coffins, swathed in Turkish flags, at the Ottoman-era Fatih mosque.
The funerals took place in a strongly Islamist part of the city and emotions were running high, reported the BBC's Bethany Bell.
One of the bodies was due to be buried in Istanbul while the other eight were being taken to their home towns, AFP news agency reported.
Turkish post-mortem examinations found all nine of the dead had been shot, some at close range.
The dead include a 19-year-old Turkish citizen with an American passport - hit by four bullets in the head and one in the chest - and a national taekwondo athlete, Turkish media say.
The bodies arrived, along with the 450 activists, in three aircraft chartered by the Turkish government at Istanbul airport in the early hours of Thursday, after several hours of delays.
Mr Arinc said his government saluted the Turkish Islamic charity, the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH), which played a leading role in organising the convoy - a charity Israel has accused of supporting terrorism.
IHH leader Bulent Yildrim said upon his arrival back in Istanbul that he believed the death toll could be higher than nine, as his organisation had a longer list of missing people.
British activist Sarah Colbourne told the BBC: "I couldn't even count the amount of ships that were in the water. It was literally bristling with ships, helicopters and gunfire. It was horrific, absolutely horrific."
Swedish author Henning Mankell, who was aboard one of the ships in the flotilla, has dismissed the idea that weapons were being carried by the activists.
"On the ship I was on, they found one weapon: my razor. And they actually came up and showed it off, my razor, so you see what level this was at," the author of the popular Wallander detective novels told Swedish radio.
'Double standard'
Consular staff were on hand in Istanbul to help the activists from other countries. They include 34 people who hold British passports.
HOW ISRAEL RAID UNFOLDED
The flotilla of six ships, including the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara, was on its way from Cyprus to Gaza carrying supplies including cement, paper and water purification tablets.
HOW ISRAEL RAID UNFOLDED
As the flotilla, still in international waters, neared Gaza, Israeli commandos intercepted the boats from air and sea. This image shows a soldier rappelling from a helicopter onto the upper deck of the ferry.
HOW ISRAEL RAID UNFOLDED
The Israelis say their soldiers were set upon and beaten with bats, chairs and metal poles as soon as they boarded the Mavi Marmara. Activists say the soldiers attacked them first.
HOW ISRAEL RAID UNFOLDED
As the incident escalated, the Israelis used live weapons on the activists, although the exact circumstances are unclear. This still from Turkish TV footage shows first aid being given to an injured activist.
HOW ISRAEL RAID UNFOLDED
At the end of the incident at least nine activists were dead. Israel escorted the flotilla to the port of Ashdod and detained the protesters. An online maritime tracking map shows the route taken by the boats.
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Doctors in Ankara, where some of the severely injured were taken, say they have been treating people for bullet wounds. Three people are in intensive care.
Seven other activists are in a serious condition and will remain in Israeli hospitals until they can be moved, Israeli officials say.
Another plane carrying 31 Greek activists, three French nationals and one American flew into Athens early on Thursday.
More than 100 relatives and supporters cheered and shouted pro-Palestinian slogans at the airport.
Rejecting the proposed HRC investigation, Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said demands for an external inquiry showed a double standard towards the Jewish state.
When American or British troops were accused of killing civilians in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said, it was the US or Britain that carried out the investigation, not an international body.
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman suggested attaching international observers to an internal Israeli inquiry.
"We have excellent jurists... one of whom will be willing to take it on himself, and if they want to include an international member of some sort in their committee that's alright too," he told Israel radio.
The US, Israel's most important ally, has already made it clear it will accept an Israeli-led inquiry, the BBC's Andrew North reports from Jerusalem.
New ship
Talk in Gaza is now turning to the next ship on its way across the Mediterranean to try to break the blockade, the BBC's Jon Donnison reports from the territory.
The MV Rachel Corrie is expected in the blockade area within days
The Rachel Corrie - carrying 15 people including Nobel Peace laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire - had been due to be part of the original flotilla but was delayed because of technical problems.
The ship could be in the region by Saturday, our correspondent reports. Israel has said it will not be allowed to dock in Gaza.
"Everybody was very upset at what happened [with the flotilla]," Irish crew member Derek Graham told Reuters news agency by telephone.
"Everybody has been more determined than ever to continue on to Gaza."
Meanwhile, some of the 10,000 tonnes of aid seized from the flotilla by Israel has been returned to the Israeli port of Ashdod after being left stranded at a Gaza-Israel crossing.
The Hamas government in control of Gaza refused to accept the aid until Israeli-Arab activists from the flotilla were released.
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![[ISRAEL_SUB]](http://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/WO-AB182_ISRAEL_G_20100602211854.jpg)
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The MV Rachel Corrie is expected in the blockade area within days