Fears of new flashpoint as defiant Israel prepares for showdown with two more Gaza aid ships
By DAVID WILLIAMS
Last updated at 5:42 PM on 2nd June 2010
Last updated at 5:42 PM on 2nd June 2010
- Israeli ambassador to US compares Gaza attack to fight against Nazi Germany
- This isn't America or Europe, it is the Middle East, where there is no mercy for the weak, says Israeli defence minister
- Israel bows to world pressure and deports activists seized in botched raid
Israel is facing another potentially explosive confrontation at sea as pro-Palestinian activists sent two more boats to challenge its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
Reports in Israel claimed the navy was prepared to use even more force to stop ships from breaking the blockade.
A top commander told the Jerusalem Post yesterday: ‘We boarded the ship and were attacked as if it was a war.
‘That will mean that we will have to come prepared in the future as if it was a war.’
World condemnation: An Israeli flag burns outside the embassy in Manila in the Philipines today as global anger over the attack on the Gaza aid convoy increased
Fury: Protesters shout slogans during an anti-Israeli protest in front of the Israeli embassy in Vienna, Austria today
Turkey - one of Israel's closest Muslim allies until Monday's clash left several of citizens dead - was last night reported to be considering sending a naval escort for the boats.
This would arrive in the region at the end of the week, creating a potential flashpoint for a major clash between the nations.
Today Israel bowed to world pressure and began deporting the activists it had seized in Monday's botched raid.
The 42 Britons jailed in the attack are expected to arrive back in the UK today or tomorrow. More than 100 Arab activists were have already been bussed over the border with Jordan today.
However Israel remained defiant about the raid, with the Israeli ambassador to the U.S. comparing it to America's fight against Nazi Germany.
Speaking on Fox News yesterday, Michael Oren said the raid was 'perfectly legal, perfectly humane – and very responsible'.
Protesters in front of the White House yesterday. America is Israel's staunchest ally
Homecoming: Palestinian aid flotilla attack survivor Hasan Nowarah is greeted by his children at Glasgow Airport after being deported from Israel today
Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has called for Israel to be punished for its attack
'Israel acted in accord with international law,' he continued. 'Any state has the right to protect itself, certainly from a terrorist threat such as Hamas, including on the open seas.
'The U.S. acted under similar international law when it fought the Germans and the Japanese in World War Two.'
Yesterday Turkish premier Tayyip Erdogan called for Israel to be punished for its attack on the flotilla on Monday and said 'nothing would ever be the same' in relations between the two allies.
'Israel's behaviour should definitely, definitely be punished. No one should try to test Turkey's patience,' he said.
Greta Berlin, of the Free Gaza Movement, which organised the flotilla at the centre of Monday's confrontation, said it would not be deterred by the Israeli action and that one of the two latest cargo ships was already off the coast of Italy en route for Gaza.
‘We are an initiative to break Israel's blockade of 1.5 million people in Gaza. Our mission has not changed and this is not going to be the last flotilla,' she added.
The MV Rachel Corrie, a converted merchant ship bought by pro-Palestinian activists and named after an American woman killed in the Gaza Strip in 2003, set off yesterday from Malta, organisers said.
It was carrying medical equipment, wheelchairs, school supplies and cement, as well as 15 activists, including Northern Irish Nobel peace laureate Mairead Corrigan-Maguire and Denis Halliday, an Irish former senior UN diplomat.
Irish prime minister Brian Cowen described the vessel as Irish-owned and said it should be allowed to finish its mission. The ship was carrying 15 activists including a northern Irish Nobel Peace laureate.
WHO WAS RACHEL CORRIE?
Rachel Corrie was an American member of the International Solidarity Movement who was killed while protesting against Israel Defence Forces demolishing homes in the Gaza Strip.
The 23-year-old volunteer travelled to Gaza during a gap year in 2003 during the Second Intifada where she and other demonstrators formed a human shield to prevent the destruction.
She was hit by a bulldozer while attempting to stop the IDF destroying the home of Palestinian Samir Nasrallah.
The IDF claimed the death was due to the restricted angle view of the D9 bulldozer driver.
Miss Corrie, from Olympia, Washington, was a student at The Evergreen State College and also worked as a volunteer with patients suffering mental disorders.
On March 14, 2003, during an interview with the Middle East Broadcasting network, Miss Corrie said: ‘I feel like I'm witnessing the systematic destruction of a people's ability to survive.
'Sometimes I sit down to dinner with people and I realise there is a massive military machine surrounding us, trying to kill the people I'm having dinner with.’
‘The government has formally requested the Israeli government to allow the Irish-owned ship ... to be allowed to complete its journey unimpeded and discharge its humanitarian cargo in Gaza,’ he told parliament in Dublin.
An Israeli marine lieutenant, who was not identified, told Israel's Army Radio his unit was prepared to block the ship.
‘We as a unit are studying, and we will carry out professional investigations to reach conclusions,’ the lieutenant said, referring to Monday's confrontation in which his unit shot nine activists aboard a Turkish ferry.
‘And we will also be ready for the Rachel Corrie,’ he added.
Israel's Army Radio reported that the ship would reach Gazan waters by Wednesday, but activist Berlin said it might not attempt to reach Gaza until early next week.
‘We will probably not send her till (next) Monday or Tuesday,’ she said of the 1,200-tonne cargo ship.
A second boat carrying about three dozen passengers is expected to join it, Miss Berlin said, adding: 'This initiative is not going to stop.
'We think eventually Israel will get some kind of common sense. They're going to have to stop the blockade of Gaza, and one of the ways to do this is for us to continue to send the boats.'
Israeli officials said it was studying the lessons from the Monday's clashes and would be prepared to turn back any further challengers to its blockade.
The flotilla was the ninth seaborne attempt to breach the blockade that Israel and Egypt imposed after the militant Hamas group violently seized the territory in 2007.
Israel allowed five seaborne aid shipments to get through but slammed the blockade shut after its 2009 war in Gaza.
Israel says it is is needed to prevent the Iranian-backed Hamas, which has fired thousands of rockets into the Jewish state, from building up its arsenal.
It also wants to put pressure Hamas to free an Israeli soldier it has held for four years.
Critics say the blockade has failed to weaken Hamas but further strapped an already impoverished economy.
Egypt broke ranks with Israel yesterday and said it was opening its border with the strip for several days to allow in aid.
The governor of Egyptian's northern Sinai district said it was a gesture meant to 'alleviate the suffering of our Palestinian brothers after the Israeli attack'.
Route: MV Rachel Corrie set off from Malta heading for Gaza
Defence minister Ehud Barak, who visited the Shayetet 13 base in Atlit on Wednesday, praised the commandos who participated in the deadly raid on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
'You carried out the mission and prevented the flotilla from reaching Gaza,' Barak said according to Haaretz.com.
'We need to always remember that we aren't North America or Western Europe, we live in the Middle East, in a place where there is no mercy for the weak and there aren't second chances for those who don't defend themselves.
‘You were fighting for your lives – I saw it, and I heard it from your commanders.'
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