On Fri, 4 Jun 2010, Dennis Claxton quoted IDF hasbara saying:
> "S. did a remarkable job," T. said. "He stabilized the situation and
> succeeded in hitting six of the terrorists."
I think this might be the key to what went wrong (in the most immediate sense, leaving aside that the whole plan was mad): this one guy panicked, thought he was surrounded by a crowd armed with firearms (not true) and went off, killing 6 people at point blank range in about a minute. That's not only what started the massacre, that is most of the massacre. The IDF is making a hero out of the villain.
FWIW, here's the first account I've read of the initial contact that seems to synthesize the two sides. It's a report from a sympathetic journalist who watched it all from the nearest other ship in the flotilla, 150 meters away. He seems to give an eyewitness account right up until the moment when Braindead here arrived on the scene, panicked and shot up the place:
http://www.smh.com.au/world/prayers-tear-gas-and-terror-20100603-x7ew.html
June 4, 2010 - 11:33AM
Sidney Morning Herald
Paul McGeough, CHIEF CORRESPONDENT IN ISTANBUL
The Israeli attack was timed for dawn prayers - when a good number of
the men aboard the Mavi Marmara were praying on the aft deck of the big
Turkish passenger ferry, as it motored steadily through international
waters in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The call to prayer could be heard across the water - haunting chords
made tinny by the ship's PA system, yet haunting enough amid tension
sparked several hours earlier when the six ships' captains in the Free
Gaza Flotilla rejected a demand radioed by the Israeli navy - change
course away from the Gaza Strip or be confronted with lethal force.
Pacing the Mavi Marmara at a steady 8 knots and just 150 metres to its
port side, we were aboard the 25-metre Challenger One, the fastest but
also the smallest boat in the flotilla. It was a front-row seat for the
opening to Israel's Operation Sky Wind which, despite confident
predictions by a gallery of Israeli officials, was about to go horribly
wrong.
In the blackness before the rising of a burnt-orange moon, all that
could be seen of the Israelis around us were pinpoints of light, as
warships sitting a kilometre or more each side of the flotilla inched
in - seemingly to squeeze the Gaza-bound humanitarian convoy.
Then, the tightening noose. Sneaking up and around every boat, there
were bullet-shaped hulks which soon became impossible to hide as the
moonlight made fluorescent tubes of their roiling wakes. First one,
then two and maybe four could be seen sneaking in from the rear.
They hunted like hyenas - moving up and ahead on the flanks; pushing
in, then peeling away; and finally, lagging before lunging. But as they
came alongside the Mavi Marmara, the dozen or so helmeted commandos in
each assault craft copped the full force of the ferry's fire hoses and
a shower of whatever its passengers found on deck or could break from
the ship's fittings.
Suddenly sound bombs and tear gas were exploding on the main aft deck,
where prayers were held five times a day. The life-jacketed passengers
on the rails at first seemed oblivious as those behind them donned the
few gas masks that were on board and others, wearing asbestos gloves,
sought to grab the devices and hurl them back at the Israeli commandos
before they exploded.
In failing to get their grappling irons to hold on the rails of the
five-deck ferry, the commandos in their Zodiac-style assault craft
continued to be an irritant, or perhaps a decoy because at this point
the Israelis opted for a critical change of plan - if they could not
come up from the water, they would have to drop from the sky.
On hearing the machines, activists on the upper decks rushed to the top
level of the ship - grabbing the commandos even before they landed,
disarming them; beating them until, according to some who were present,
leaders demanded the Israelis not be harmed; but in one case, one of
the Israelis was hurled from one deck of the ship to the next.
The death toll stands at nine of the ship's activists and maybe 30
injured - and there were claims from some on the ship that some of
their comrades were missing, unaccounted for since the battle at sea
and the chaotic arrest and deportation by Israel of the estimated 700
activists aboard the six vessels.
Four of the ships carried 10,000 tonnes of emergency supplies for Gaza,
which Israel has kept under blockade since 2006 when Hamas won
electoral control of the Palestinian Occupied Territories. A year later
Hamas retained control of Gaza in the face of an Israeli- and US-backed
bid to oust the Islamist movement from power.
The flotilla drew on funds from NGOs in Turkey, Malaysia, Ireland,
Algeria, Kuwait, Greece and Sweden.
The international coalition of Palestinian support groups is determined
to prove the Israeli blockade of Gaza is a Western-backed exercise in
collective punishment - something that will be maintained until Gazans
turn on Hamas. Tel Aviv claims it is vital to Israel's security.
As distress flares launched from the ship cut through the steel-beam
spotlights on Israeli helicopters hovering overhead, the first Israeli
commandos who slithered down ropes from the choppers were easy pickings
for the waiting activists.
At this stage, Challenger One's British skipper, Dennis Healey, opted
to gun the engines, hoping to break from the Israelis swarming the rest
of the flotilla.
The following account of what happened on the decks of the Mavi Marmara
is based on interviews with activists while they and the Herald news
crew, which accompanied the flotilla as non-participating observers,
were held in an Israeli prison for more than two days. People were also
interviewed on Wednesday on board one of three aircraft sent to Israel
by the Turkish government to ferry all the near-700 captured activists
to a rousing 4am reception by tens of thousands of cheering Turks at
Istanbul's airport.
There were conflicting accounts of the first commando landing - some
activists said he was injured and was being carried inside the ship for
treatment by the flotilla doctors. However, a Serbian cameraman, Srojan
Stojiljkovic, said some of the activists had armed themselves with
lengths of chain and metal posts that had served as cordons around the
ship's lifeboats.
"Some of the people caught the first commando before he touched the
deck - a few started to hit him, but a lot of people moved in to
shelter him with their bodies," the cameraman said. "Another soldier
with a bleeding nose was brought in ... a few people threw punches, but
not as many as I would have expected."
Matthias Gardel, a leader of the Swedish Palestinian support group,
confirmed the soldiers had been beaten, but insisted those involved
were unarmed and in keeping with the ship's non-violent charter, the
soldiers' weapons were thrown overboard.
Soon after the soldiers had been treated, injured and dead from among
the boat's passengers were brought in. Stojiljkovic said: "Some were
not badly wounded, but then a guy was brought in with a point-blank
shot between his eyes - he was dead and I was told that another person
was killed in the same way."
The Turkish actor Sinan Albayrak said he had witnessed one of the most
senior of the Turkish activists ordering passengers to cease beating
two of the Israeli soldiers.
Later, he saw a Turkish photographer who had been shot in the back of
the head; while he and others had been attempting to assist another
injured activist, "Israeli troops had opened fire on them . . . we ran
away from the injured man".
Gardel said the bulk of the passengers had remained in the second-deck
saloons and had not been involved in resisting the Israelis -"but a
bunch of people tried to protect the bridge, the engine-room and the
point from which we streamed the live video".
Another activist, a Turk, lifted his shirt to reveal 10 puncture marks
in a rough and black-bruised circle, about the circumferences of a
teacup. He said the marks were inflicted when he was bitten by an
Israeli security dog - while he had been assisting the Israelis by
acting as a translator.
The dead include a Turkish journalist, Chetin Genghis, whose head
wounds suggested he had been shot from above - possibly from one of the
helicopters. After witnessing his dying moments, his colleague Hisham
Goruney said:"I want to forget - I still don't believe that I saw it."
Another of the dead was said to be an Indonesian cameraman, Sura
Fachrizaz, shot in the chest. Also among the dead was a Malaysian
doctor who, activists said, was shot while treating the wounded.
It took the Israelis about 85 minutes to capture the Mavi Marmara.
As the 100-plus reporters and other media workers on board followed
orders to return to the ship's press room after being told by the
captain his vessel now was under Israeli control, many were crestfallen
by the sense an Israeli blanket of "white-noise" had prevented them
from getting the story out.
But then someone flicked the switch on a big flat-screen TV on the
wall. It burst into life with a Turkish channel, running the live-feed
video which the ship had been transmitting to websites run by the Free
Gaza Movement and the flotilla's other sponsors - it was scenes of the
Israeli takeover of the Mavi Marmara. A resounding cheer went up.