Patty Culhane / Al Jazeera – 2010-06-10 00:55:29
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/06/20106100138124969.html
US Urges Israel to Lift Gaza Siege
Patty Culhane / Al Jazeera
WASHINTON (July 10, 2010) — Barack Obama, the US president, has called on Israel to lift the “siege” on Palestinians, after a meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president. Wednesday’s meeting in Washington also resulted in a $400m US aid package for Gaza and the West Bank. Abbas said Obama’s statement is a “positive signal” that the US cared about the suffering of those in Gaza and the Palestinian people.
Flotilla Activists ‘Shot 30 Times’
Al Jazeera
(June 7, 2010) — Autopsies on bodies of activists killed in Israel’s attack on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla five days ago indicate that the victims were shot multiple times at close range.
Britain’s Guardian newspaper quoted Yalcin Buyuk, the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, as saying that the nine men were shot a total of 30 times. Two men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, Buyuk told the newspaper, based on preliminary autopsy reports.
Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60-year-old activist, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back, the autopsy revealed. Nineteen-year-old Furkan Dogan, a US citizen of Turkish descent, was shot five times from less that 45cm in the face, the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back.
Nine people were killed in Monday’s pre-dawn raid on the Freedom Flotilla, a convoy of ships carrying humanitarian aid, that was heading to Gaza in a bid to break Israel’s blockade of the territory.
Israeli military said the marines, who boarded the ship in international waters, fired in self-defence after activists attacked them. Avital Leibovich, an Israeli military spokeswoman, when asked why a 60-year-old and 19-year-old, amongst others, were shot multiple times at close range, told Al Jazeera: “We learnt the hard way that terrorists can be of a variety of ages or backgrounds. They had one goal, they chose to confront us with knives and metal rods,” she said.
‘Shot from Helicopter’
Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, who was travelling in the flotilla and witnessed the Israeli raid, confirmed that some passengers took apart some of the ship’s railings to defend themselves as they saw the Israeli soldiers approaching. He said that he witnessed some of the killings, and confirmed that at least “one person was shot through the top of the head from [the helicopter] above.”
“After the shooting and the first deaths, people put up white flags and signs in English and Hebrew,” he said. “An Israeli activist [on the ship] asked the soldiers to take away the injured, but they did not and the injured died on the ship.” The deaths, which all took place on the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, continue to draw widespread condemnation.
Turkish newspapers reported on Saturday that the prosecutor’s office in Istanbul, in Turkey, had compiled enough evidence to press charges against Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, the defence mininster, and Gabi Ashkenazi, Israel’s chief of staff. The charges would include murder, injury, attacking Turkish citizens on the open seas and piracy, Today’s Zaman, the English-language daily, said.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister of Turkey, speaking during a televised speech said: “You [Israel] killed 19-year-old Furkan Dogan brutally. Which faith, which holy book can be an excuse for killing him?”
“I am speaking to them in their own language. The sixth commandment says “thou shalt not kill”. Did you not understand? I’ll say again. I say in English “you shall not kill”. Did you still not understand? So I’ll say to you in your own language. I say in Hebrew ‘Lo Tirtzakh’.”
Talking about Hamas, he said: “[They] are resistance fighters fighting for their land. They are Palestinians. “They won an election and now they are in Israel’s prisons. I told this to the Americans, that I do not accept Hamas as a terrorist group.”
Turkey Threat
Namik Tan, Turkey’s ambassador to Washington, also warned on Friday that his country could break all relations with Israel unless it apologises for the raid against Mavi Marmara, which carried a Turkish flag. Tan also said that Turkey wanted a credible independent investigation into the events and for Israel to end its blockade of Gaza.
Three Turkish activists wounded in the raid arrived back home on a medical plane on Friday. Another two volunteers who were seriously wounded remain in an Israeli hospital, with a Turkish plane on stand-by to repatriate them, Recep Akdag, Turkey’s health minister said.
The US said that it would investigate the death of Dogan, the youngest killed in the attack, who had joint Turkish-US citizenship. “We will look into the circumstances of the death of an American citizen, as we would do anywhere in the world at all times,” Philip Crowley, a state department spokesman, said.
Previous Foreign Activists Killed by Israel
Al Jazeera
(May 31, 2010) — Rachel Corriewas killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza on 16 March, 2003, as she tried to stop it demolishing a Palestinian home. The family of the US activist blames the Israeli military for her death and is forcing the country to defend itselfin court.
Tom Hurndallwas a 21-year-old photojournalism student who travelled to the Gaza Strip as part of the International Solidarity Movement. He was shot in the head in April 2003 by an Israeli army sniper while trying to rescue Palestinian children in the street. He never regained consciousness and died nine months later in a London hospital.
British cameraman James Miller,34, was shot dead by another soldier from the same Israeli unit just a mile away three weeks later. He was in Rafah while making a documentary for a US cable channel.
An autopsy confirmed he was almost certainly killed by an Israeli soldier, despite the army’s assertions to the contrary. Video evidence clearly showed Miller and his team carrying white flags and shouting to Israeli soldiers that they were British journalists.
Tristan Anderson,38, had three brain operations after being shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister by Israeli security forces on 13 March 2009. Anderson, who survived with major brain damage, was in the West Bank village of Nilin, protesting with Palestinian farmers against the construction of Israel’s “separation wall”.
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