The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #129840 Message #2918867
Posted By: CarolC
02-Jun-10 - 04:02 AM
Thread Name: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
Subject: RE: BS: New Israeli atrocity: attack on Gaza aid
It's the first video below all of the still shots. It was the live feed with the correspondents talking about what was going on as it was happening. On of the English speaking correspondents says there are already wounded people. At that time, there were no Israelis aboard the ship. In a couple of minutes, they report that a helicopter is trying to land, and then you see the helicopter throw out the rope or ladder and Israelis start coming down it.
I was watching all of the live feed as it was happening and I was also posting developments to my facebook page at the same time, so I have a record of the order in which things happened, and that's how I remember it. I've also read an account from someone else who reports it almost exactly as I remember it, and they also say the Israelis opened fire first. Here's some of their account and a link to the whole thing...
"There, the reports continued, mainly in turkish again but I heard a few in english, and they said that they were waiting around, because they were trying to avoid going into Israeli waters in the night time, since a previous aid ship was intercepted that way in 2009, at night time. They wanted to avoid any showdown at night time, so they backed away and went westward, 90-100 km from the Gaza shores (still in international waters, which protects them from Israeli attack). It was said that the israeli ships turned back. The live feed resumed and you could see people still standing and walking around all tense with their life jackets on.
Around now the live feed was being interrupted every few minutes. It would black out, sometimes the audio would cut off, and then it would return. It was reported that this was Israelis trying to block the sattelite channels from the ships, but every few minutes it would come back. Suddenly, the feed cut off for about 5-10 minutes. I was at the Gaza Tv News page and someone said that 2 people were killed and 30 injured, I didn't believe them.
Suddenly the feed came back, but this time it was from a turkish news channel. It seems as if all other feeds were cut off except for the turkish media passengers. It was some reporters talking live while images of the events in the boat were also happening live. All you could hear was a woman screaming in a different language, and then for a while she was yelling "WE NEED HELP! DON'T ATTACK US! WE ARE UNARMED CIVILIANS! WE NEED HELP! 2 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN KILLED!"
After a while of that, it stopped and you could hear Quran being played, and afterward an announcement said "Please stay calm, please take your seats, we have 2 people killed and we don't want any more hurt". You could see people walking back and forth.
Then I saw images of a helicopter flying overhead the boat, and reports said that they were trying to land on the boat.
Then the live feed switched positions and it was now on the deck, you could see ropes let go from above, and soldiers descending one by one, the camera man was reporting that the soliders were opening fire at the civilians, and I actually heard many gunshots over and over. The camera man ducked and another had a shot of a soldier in a confrontation with one passenger, and then I saw soldiers standing on the top of somewhere, no one was around them but I saw one soldier shoot randomly. Then I also saw a group of soldiers standing near the end of a ship wielding guns strutting back and forth before going out of camera view."
Here are some testimonies from flotilla people who have been released and are now talking about it...