Gaza flotilla captain: Activists prepared attack against IDF raid
WATCH: Video of Mehmut Tuval shows captain saying he attempted to prevent violent clashes between activists and the Israeli military.
By Haaretz ServiceThe captain and first mate of the Mavi Marmara, the ship which led the Gaza flotilla raided by Israel Defense Forces special forces last week, had attempted to prevent premeditated violent clashes between activists and the Israeli military, evidence released Friday showed.
Late last month, Israeli commandos rappelled onto the deck of one of the ships trying to break Israel's three-year-old blockade of Gaza. The soldiers were intercepted by a crowd of activists, setting off a clash that killed nine men - eight Turks and a Turkish American.
Israel says its soldiers began shooting only after a mob of pro-Palestinian activists attacked them - a version backed up by video footage released by the army. But the activists and their supporters say Israeli commandos needlessly opened fire.
According to the clip, released by the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, the ship's captain Mehmut Tuval had attempted to prevent a violent altercation by disposing of metal bars and chains IHH activists had cut ahead of the IDF takeover.
Mehmut said that "once we see that the boats [were] around us…actually not us, but around the total ships…about two hours [before the takeover]… I see they were cutting the steels…chains. And I said to the chief officer, he collected all of them and also we put it in the radio room in the bridge."
The captain also indicated that he had thrown some of the bars and chains into the sea, while adding that he also asked IHH activists to pass over the bars and chains that had collected later on.
Tuval said he sent his chief officer to ask for the bars, "saying …he cannot take directly from the guys..he spoke with the IHH to collect the [steel bars and chains]…we asked them to drop them, drop in the sea, because if they take it from the bridge that's when we have a problem…and [after that] we didn't see any in their hands."
The Mavi Marmara captain said he was indeed worried that the presence of the makeshift weapons would worsen the situations, adding he thought that nothing would eventually happen since the IHH commanders were at hand to prevent any violence.
"I was worried but if their [leader] on the ship that there would be no effect, nobody will fight… I said many of times because I know the end," Tuval told investigators, adding that he thought that nothing would happen since there were civilians on the ship/
"I worried [that's] why I collected the things to the bridge and I take how many I see in their hands and I drop them in the sea."
Asked whether or not he knew if the IHH activists were preparing a violent welcome to the IDF takeover, Tuval said that "they were preparing to violence against the soldiers: Yeah from what I was informed."
The ship's first officer, Gokkiran Gokhan, told his investigators that he was sent by the ship's captain to look into an unusual commotion near the life-boat section of the Mavi Marmara.
Once he got there, Gokhan had noticed that bars and chains had been cut off by IHH activists from the deck using rotary saws, which he claims were no part of the ship's equipment.
Asked whose equipment were they, the first officer said: "I don't know, not the ship's. There is no such equipment on the ship. The deck has rods with hooks for chains, and when I got there the rods had been cut."
Gokhan added that this had happened after dark, and when he had asked one of the activists who had cut the rods, he answered that he didn't know. The first officer also said that the IHH activists did not allow anyone but members of their group to pass through their section of the ship.
When asked how the IHH activists communicated with each other, Gokhan told his investigators that "they brought walkie-talkies along with them when they got on board in Istanbul. The radios were distributed to the IHH people and to the ship's crew."
The first mate added that other non-IHH passengers were allowed to move freely, with the exception of the control center which was located above the ship's bridge, saying that the IHH group was made up of 40 people who boarded the ship in Istanbul.
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Items said to have been found on a flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip - including knives, metal tools, rods, chains, and computer - laid out on Monday May 31, 2010. |
| Photo by: AP |
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Everybody should study the real history of this conflict, who started the real terriost movement of this land , begin was the leader of a terror group that blew up the king david hotel and sheron that locked 69 arabs in there homes and then blew them up with dynamite in the 1953 The zionist movement had this planed since the early 19th century , wake up and start checking the real history of this conflict and stop making the arabs the ones who create terror , they are just reacting , israel is the one that uses terror look up your history before you make comments, the world has been a sleep for to long , you need to find out the facts on how the state of Israel came to be .
in international water...someone dropping into your boat with weapons are 'attackers' and those on the boat are defending themselves. israeli twisted logic as usual.
since a few hours after this news broke out, it was evident that most countries, and indeed most talkbackers, had taken sides. After that, it was just a matter of making the news coming out fit with whatever version one chose to believe. So for most talkbackers, any footage supporting Israeli claims will be met with a barrage of criticism and accusations, and any footage/statement released by the protesters/Erdogan will be assumed as the word of god (and vice versa). Why is everyone so adamant of passing judgment and just now wait until more information is available? Or at least nuance how you write your posts, just to pretend you are trying to be a bit, you know, impartial. It highlights the intellectual dishonesty underlying most talkbackers' analysis (either pro/ or anti israel).
The leftists have smeared israel really good this time. Enough is enough now time to pushback the other way.
Even if Israel tries to alter the situation slightly, we will not step back. Together with IHH, we will continue to organize new activities. As the people of Greece, we will continue to act sensitive towards this issue.
What Israel is showing as weapons are kitchen knives, repair materials, pliers .. etc. Every boat has those. If you want to see real weapons come to Turkey.
give it up already - leave it to your 'impartial' inquiry or are you not so sure that the public are backing you on your claims of confronting and klilling killer/al quaeda/hamas/terrorists/megatron/armed to the teeth activists?
Stupid IDF, most of the "weapons" you can find on every ship. A part of the weapons are tools.
I'm sure the captain did say this, but it's not really any different to what we already know, and it's pure propaganda that Israel only releases the few photos and few words of interrogation that it wants the world to hear, while censoring everything else. A few hot-headed passangers prepared a welcome party for the IDF commandos. So what? The IDF are big boys. They came with flak jackets and weapons of their own and a navy and they ended up killing 9 people. The real story is why the IDF were unable or unwilling to do what normal western security forces would have done - that is, find a way to defuse the situation and disarm the hotheads without killing a significant number of them. Release ALL the interrogations and ALL the photos and videos or its just hasbara that the world will rightly ignore.
Erdogan planned and executed his move to Iran and Syria well and was willing to sacrifice his countrymen and Israeli soldiers for this. Haaretz should tackle this and point out that a democracy which Turkey calls itself should not behave this way.
I haven't seen this in the media here (New Zealand)
He said .......they said .the news papers are saying ........every one has something to say ...... it's now becomming a case of verbal diarrhea or Emotional Diarrhea characterized by explosive outbursts from all sides of thoughtlessness through the oral cavity. My advice to Israel you do what you have to do. It's either you or them.
Well, whatever, I have never heard of any ship having more than one captain. Since when do they work in shifts? Isn't it the standard hierarchy everyhwere that there's one captain, and several officers? So, is this the second officer, or what? And as an officer of the ship, shouldn't he have some insignia on his shirt? A google search produces no answers yet. I'd rather wait for other sources providing details.
The Israeli authorities didn't send the custom control boat to inspect the vessels. It was a military operation performed under the veil of night by the specially trained commando spectacularly landing from the helicopters. If the military, which landed the foreign vessel and thus the foreign territory in neutral waters, was met with little warm feelings from its passengers, it is more than understandable, and the assaulters should say thanks the pistol which is normally in captain's possession, was not put in use in self-defense. If the eagles landing from the sky quickly and equally spectacularly ended up overboard, accounts either to some stupidest kind of military miscalculation on the IDF's part or to their expected psychological effect of b-war-movie paraphernalia. But to claim that the civil flotilla nearly "lynched" the Israeli patrols and that those acted in self-defence is tantamount to claiming that the six flotilla passengers chased the IDF boats into Israeli territorial waters, there surrounded them, boarded them, threw the ropes to the hovering helicopters and climbed the ropes up en masse with their kitchen knives in their teeth. This self-victimization of the Israeli marines seems truly unprecedented, even if we take on account that the world is a spoiled spectator of the official IDF emissions in the fantasy series.
Damage is already done in Israel´s image and I suspect now this was the original intent. Martyridom, people screaming in the main European cities, the unification of the ummah against Israel... It was not the humanitarian aid, it was not the end of the blockage, but one step forward in the struggle to delegitimize Israel. In my country, unfortunately, people who never took side or never had interest in Middle East are now fiercely against Israel, driven by a dozen of newspapers. What counts are the first images not the explanations, the rationale.Colombia, last year, entered Ecuador, killed some people in flagrant violation of international law. The repercusion was mininum. Now I am convinced finally there is a huge, coordinated effort to deligitimize Israel. I am sorry for that.
You want a different name for 'deligitimizing' Israel - Antisemitism Nice disguise for them, all them demonstrators are tools of muslim propaganda against us
for being so easy to goad into a trap They are too predictable and easily guided. The flotilla could easily have been prevented from reaching Gaza without bloodshed.
And I don't think the captain of the ship is a Mossad agent......
That the IHH members are to blame for the casualties. They should pay compensation and Turkey should make an official apology for their support to the group.
attacking the boat inbternational waters ....
You are already paying with your damaged image and reputation. Israel will probably pay couple of million dollars for the victims families. But you have paid already by your piracy against civilians in the international waters.
There's no reasonable doubt they'll run this news, but only after trying to verify the information. As every good journalist should. If this is really the second officer (or "third captain") of the ship, he should be free now, like all others, and it should be no big problem getting a confirmation of the story from him. And probably additional infos, too.
A basic tenant of all competent reporting. Obviously, the BBC is not competent.