The Israeli military forces have opened fire, used pressure water cannons and carried out risky maneuvers to board the last dozen boats and almost a hundred activists from the flotilla that were still sailing towards Gaza this Tuesday, after Monday. The journalist, a collaborator of EL PAÍS, travels on one of the captured ships, with whom all communications have been cut off. There is, at the moment, no news of the whereabouts of those arrested. Among them is the sister of the President of Ireland, Margaret Connolly.
Turkish activist Ömer Aslan was doing a live broadcast aboard the sailboat Girolamain which the Spaniard Lluis de Moner Mayans is also traveling, when a zodiac of the Israeli Armed Forces approached with a dozen soldiers on board. You can see how, as the boat approaches, shots are heard and the crew members of the boat Girolama They fall to the ground amid screams of panic. Another video, from the ship’s security camera, shows how the crew held their arms up before the Israeli forces opened fire. The sailboat Kingfisher It was also the target of gunfire and in this case –– it is clearly seen how an Israeli uniformed officer points towards the boat and shoots at it. Both ships were in international waters north of Egypt, about 160 nautical miles from Gaza and Israeli territorial waters.
The coordinating organizations have not reported any fatalities or injuries, although communication with both vessels has been interrupted as soon as the Israeli forces have boarded the vessels. Both the Israeli Army and the Foreign Ministry have declined to comment on the incident when asked by the Reuters agency..
In another area further east and closer to the coast of Israel, the Sirius – in which, among others, the Spaniard Alonso Santos and the Argentine Lautaro Rivara were traveling – was attacked by an Israeli patrol boat. The flotilla vessel was in live communication with the crisis table established in Istanbul to monitor the progress of the flotilla, so in its transmission you can see how the Israeli patrol boat carries out risky maneuvers to try to stop the Sirius and sprayed the crew with pressurized water, who stood with their hands up on the deck. Subsequently, the patrol boat suddenly approaches from the port side and when it seems that it is going to hit him with its keel, the communication is cut off.
🔴Global Sumud Fleet is being attacked by the occupying Israel in international waters!
📌The Israeli military navy ship, one of our last 2 remaining boats, first created artificial waves, sprayed pressurized water and hit the stern to stop the Sirius Ship. Our satellite connection crashed…
— Global Sumud Fleet Türkiye (@globalsumudtr)
“This dangerous intervention against a civilian ship with a purely humanitarian mission in international waters constitutes a clear act of piracy. We urgently call on all international mechanisms, especially the United Nations, to act against this illegal behavior by Israel, emphasizing that Israel is fully responsible for the safety of civilian volunteers, and we urge the international community to act immediately against this brutal attack,” the Istanbul crisis table said in a statement.
As the afternoon fell, only one boat of the more than 50 that made up the flotilla, the sailboat Lina, continued browsing. However, it was also captured by Israel after a few hours in an area more than 200 nautical miles from Gaza, near the island of Cyprus and where Israeli forces boarded most of the ships in the flotilla.
The largest flotilla
One of the ships not captured by the Israelis, the Family, He had to request assistance from the Turkish coast guard due to a technical problem and on Tuesday morning he was towed to a Turkish port. Another vessel, which also suffered incidents, headed to Cyprus waters, a source from the organization reported.
With some 500 activists on board and more than 50 boats, this flotilla, coordinated by the Global Sumud and Freedom Flotilla coalitions, was the largest to date to try to break the naval blockade imposed by the Israeli authorities against the Palestinian enclave. The boats left Barcelona last month and, after calling at several ports, were attacked by the Israelis off the coast of Crete (Greece), more than 1,000 kilometers from the waters of the Jewish State. Except for two members who were detained and taken to Israel, the rest were released in a Greek port.
That allowed the group to reorganize and add new vessels in the Turkish port of Marmaris. From there he set out on this new attempt that, once again, has been blocked by Israel in international waters, something that the Turkish Government has described as an “act of piracy.”
In a joint statement, the foreign ministers of several countries whose citizens have been captured by Israel – including Spain, Brazil, Colombia, Turkey and Jordan – have demanded their “immediate release” and have expressed “concern for their safety”, since members of previous flotillas have been subdued in those in which they were housed. “These assaults, including attacks on boats and the arbitrary detention of activists, constitute a blatant violation of international law,” they denounce.
On Monday, Spanish diplomacy urgently summoned the chargé d’affaires of the Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Dana Erlich, the country’s highest diplomatic representative in Spain, to convey the Spanish Government’s “formal and energetic protest” over the illegal detention of the flotilla.
The list of activists captured by Israel offered by the organizers of the Flotilla indicates that, of the total of 428, the bulk are Turks (78), followed by Spaniards (44), French (36) and Italians (30), although there are citizens of 44 different nationalities, including Chileans, Argentines, Mexicans and Brazilians.
No communication
Given the communications blockade and lack of information from Israel, the whereabouts of the activists captured on the high seas are unknown. In a statement, the Freedom Flotilla indicated that the Israeli military informed them that the activists would be transferred to a “prison ship” and then taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry has warned the remaining ships to “turn around immediately” as it will not allow “any violation of the legal naval blockade of Gaza.” The authorities of the Jewish State defend the naval siege using the Palmer Report, issued by a group of experts appointed by the then UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, after the Israeli assault on the Turkish ship in 2009, during which Israeli commandos assaulted the ship and murdered 10 crew members – for which Israel later apologized and paid compensation to the victims’ families.
The Palmer Commission – in which former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe participated – concluded that Israel had used excessive violence, but that its interception of the ship in international waters was legal and that the naval encirclement complied with war legislation on the subject. However, numerous legal experts and UN organizations themselves have questioned the Palmer report, for not taking into account the humanitarian aspect and that the siege is part of the total blockade that Israel has been subjecting Gaza to for almost two decades, which is why they conclude that it is illegal.
