WarSclerotic

Israel blames ‘stowaway mercenaries’ for violence on Gaza aid ship – Times Online.

Israel deported 19 activists arrested on an Irish ship taking aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip and accused a previous aid convoy of harbouring mercenaries who had joined the flotilla by stealth and attacked Israeli forces.

Iran stoked tensions by offering its Revolutionary Guards to act as armed escorts for future aid convoys to Gaza.

Israeli naval forces intercepted the Irish-flagged MV Rachel Corrie on Saturday. It was the last ship of the Gaza aid flotilla, arriving five days after the storming of the first six ships, in which nine passengers were shot dead by Israeli commandos.

The first seven passengers from the Rachel Corrie, mostly Malaysians, were deported across the border with Jordan yesterday, officials said. The remaining 12 — including Mairead Maguire the Irish Nobel peace laureate — were to be expelled later in the evening from Tel Aviv airport, bound for Germany.

Israel is struggling to control the fallout from the first aid run, led by the Turkish passenger ferry Mavi Marmara. It was clashes there that left nine passengers dead and ten Israeli commandos and fifty passengers wounded.

Israel rejected a proposal by Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, for an international inquiry.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, accused hardcore activists linked to the Turkish Islamic charity IHH of being mercenaries who sneaked on board.

“They organised and equipped themselves separately and boarded the ship in a way that allowed them to avoid a security check,” Mr Netanyahu said. “Their clear intention was to initiate a violent confrontation with soldiers.”

Israeli military sources said that about 100 people were carrying about $10,000 (£7,000) each when arrested. Izzet Sahin, an IHH official, shrugged off the mercenary claims. “It’s something impossible, to put someone in the ship without checking them in through security. It could never happen, at least in Turkey.”

Hakan Albayrak, a Turkish columnist who was on the Mavi Marmara, told The Times that the only people to join after Turkey were two German MPs and a handful of European activists who boarded in Cyprus.

The three-year blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt aims to isolate the Hamas regime, deemed to be a terrorist organisation linked to Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood party. Israel had told the ships before boarding them that if they surrendered the aid would be delivered to Gaza.

Ismail Haniya, the Hamas leader, said that the Islamist movement would not take the goods unless the IHH and other donors approved and if all the passengers were freed. Israel is still holding several people, including the leader of an Arab-Israeli Islamic movement.

Guy Inbar, a spokesman for Israeli in the Palestinian territories, said that the goods would be shipped through if normally proscribed items, such as cement and building materials, were transferred under the remit of the United Nations and other approved aid groups. Dozens of lorries were loaded and ready to go but that most of the medicine taken from the ships had passed its expiry date, he said.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish Prime Minister, said that he would not relax pressure on Israel to lift the blockade.

In a Cabinet meeting yesterday Isaac Herzog, the Israeli Welfare Minister, said: “The time has come to do away with the blockade, ease the restrictions on the inhabitants and find another alternative.” Mr Netanyahu said: “We shall not allow the establishment of an Iranian port in Gaza and the free flow of weapons to Hamas.”

Iran appeared to play on these fears. Ali Shirazi, a representative of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, offered a military escort for aid flotillas. “Iran’s navy forces are ready to escort the peace flotilla to Gaza with all their powers,” he said.

This entry was posted on June 7, 2010 at 1:32 PM and is filed under Uncategorized. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.