Today, IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation made a written statement regarding Israeli army report on the Mavi Marmara attack. You can find the statement below:
IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation continues to insist on its request for an international commission to independently investigate the Israeli attack on Mavi Marmara. The military commission that has been set up by Israel is biased. The report that they launched is also a clear indicator of this fact. Reports by any future commissions will be similar to this one.
In this report, Israel has defended its soldiers who ran the operation with the aim of accomplishing the worst case scenario ever. Some intelligence fallbacks have been mentioned of in the report, followed by a defense on behalf of the planning and the execution of the operation.
In this report, Israel blames everything on the Chief Commander of the Navy whose reputation has already been destroyed in the public opinion. No accusations are carried against the soldiers who killed 9 activists during the operation. However, those commandos boarded the ship and killed unarmed civilians. They committed murder with close-range shots not only on the self-defending activists but also murdered Cevdet Kiliclar while he was taking photographs and 19-year-old Furkan Dogan who was recording a video. Kiliclar was killed by a bullet that hit him in the forehead and Furkan Dogan was killed by 5 close-range gunshots after already being wounded. Israeli soldiers killed and wounded civilians by using laser guided weapons. However, this report is trying to cover up Israeli commandos’ massacre.
The report only includes military actors of the incident, whereas no operation would have been carried out without a permission from the PM Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
The report claims that Mavi Marmara passengers opened fire against the soldiers as they boarded the ship. No weapons were present onboard the ship Mavi Marmara. Besides, the weapons seized from the soldiers who were neutralized during the commotion were thrown into the sea. Israel has made up its own story in order to defend its soldiers and murderous operation.
Israel carried out a murderous attack in international waters on 588 civilians who embarked on a journey from 36 countries with purely humanitarian purposes. No one can expect a guilty confession from Israel who refuses to apologize and to redress, who refuses to return 7 ships and cannot accept the complete lifting of the blockade on Gaza.
We, as IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, will continue to insist on Israel to pay for its pirate attack on civilians in international waters. If one would like to talk about human rights, laws and universal values, the need for a trial against Israel should be mentioned first.
It is not right to ignore Israel’s terrorism while some others are constantly being threatened to be listed as “terrorists”.
To summarize the report, according to us, this report deserves nothing but to be thrown into the garbage bin.
