Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla: Looking back a year later
By Ali Abunimah on 05/31/2011
A still from Iara Lee’s footage shows an Israeli Blackhawk helicopter as it drops troops onto the deck of the Mavi Marmara in the early morning of 31 May 2010.
In the early morning hours of 31 May 2010, Israeli forces carried out a violent, unprovoked assault on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla as it sailed in international waters in the eastern Mediterranean.
Israeli commandos in speed boats and helicopters commandeered the six ships killing nine people and injuring dozens more aboard the largest vessel, the Mavi Marmara.
The first alarming reports of the bloody Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara came via Turkish television and I was able to relay reports and screenshots via Twitter and on my Posterous blog.
Amid intense Israeli efforts to jam communications, any picture, such as this one showing a person with blood on their life vest, gave vital clues to the seriousness and violence of the Israeli assault.
Countering Israel’s propaganda
Israel not only attacked the ships but commandeered them with all their passengers and crew to the port of Ashdod, where they were held incommunicado for many days. All video and photographic footage was confiscated, and media were not allowed to speak to the hundreds of kidnapped passengers. Israel has still not returned the footage and other evidence it stole.
In the first hours and days, Israel’s propaganda – or hasbara – machine went into full swing, publishing false and distorted reports and images – such as the infamous ‘man with a dagger’ photo, and heavily edited and misleading video.
Independent reporting, using information from sources ignored by mainstream media, was key to countering Israel’s propaganda.
Lubna Masarwa, one of the first Mavi Marmara passengers to be released from Israeli custody provided a harrowing eyewitness account, published by The Electronic Intifada on 8 June.
And despite Israeli censorship, independent filmmaker Iara Lee who was aboard the Mavi Marmara managed to smuggle an hour of footage off the ship and past her Israeli kidnappers.
Analysis of this footage has provided vital corroboration of what happened during the Israeli assault, including: the use of European and American weapons and indiscriminate live fire by the Israeli attackers. Iara Lee’s footage also provided a poignant glimpse of the last moments of Turkish journalist Cevdet Kılıçlar, one of the nine people killed.
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