Huseyin Oruc, member of IHH’s Administrative Board, responded to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s statement of “today, we have seen the difference between a peaceful aid ship and a hate ship organized by violent people who support terrorism”, regarding the ship Rachel Corrie. Oruc said “This is a matter of chronological order, totally depending on which has happened first. It is not reasonable to compare the two. If a terrorist attack was carried on Rachel Corrie ship and Mavi Marmara went there 5-6 days after that, aid volunteers on that ship would have surrendered just like those on Rachel Corrie.” Huseyin Oruc went on to say: “One should definitely note that: Mavi Marmara was under an armed terrorist attack with various fire weapons for 1-1,5 hours. Gas canisters, smoke grenades, fire grenades were employed during these attacks in addition to live fire.

They approached Mavi Marmara with a number of assault boats, hitting the ship with iron bars. Prior to descending from the helicopter, they opened fire on unarmed civilians. They boarded and descended on the ship, heavily firing on civilians. Israeli soldiers were geared up as a team of assassins storming to destroy the enemy, their faces were masked and camouflage painted. The passengers showed the most basic human instinct by carrying out acts of self-defense. The activists onboard state that if they did not act out any self-defense, all the passengers including women, children and the elderly and all those on the lower deck areas would have been massacred with live ammunition. 1,5 hour of harassment and terrorist attacks drove people to that sort of thinking. That was a horrible act of terror. Previously Israel have done the same thing to the ship USS Liberty.”