'Warning' shots or not - how do people on the ground know the difference? - shots WERE fired before by reports from the commandos AND the passengers before the attacking forces landed!

This fact is only in dispute from the official Israeli media handouts.

The information from the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies on the flotilla victims undermines, from the manner and intensity of the killings, Israel's insistence that its soldiers opened fire only in self defence and in response to attacks by the activists.

…Dr Haluk Ince, the chairman of the council of forensic medicine in Istanbul, said that in only one case was there a single bullet wound, to the forehead from a distant shot, while every other victim suffered multiple wounds…He added that all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies came from 9mm rounds.
Of this other round, he said: "It was the first time we have seen this kind of material used in firearms. It was just a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns. It penetrated the head region in the temple and we found it intact in the brain."

This also ties in with some eyewitness accounts that shots were fired from above resulting in one death.

A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS?

American liberal Jewish blogger Richard Silverstein who 'focuses on Israeli-Palestinian peace but includes commentary on U.S. politics, a world music mp3 blog, and other writing on Jewish life, literature, and culture' comments….


"After reading thousands of words of reporting and eyewitness accounts and watching videos released by both sides, I'm coming to the conclusion that what happened was that the Israeli commandos initially fired stun grenades and rubber bullets from helicopters in order to disperse the crowd on board before they landed.

Either some passengers interpreted this as an all out assault on the ship or they were spoiling for a fight.

The initial group of commandos were overrun, beaten and some dragged below decks either to be used as hostages or for medical attention. I speculate that when the IDF command saw their comrades overrun on board and discovered they perhaps had been taken hostage, an automatic, instinctual blood-lust took over.
They not only had to liberate their comrades at all costs, but they had to eliminate whatever threat they had faced.

So, I don't necessarily believe the IDF went into this planning for a massacre (though senior IDF officers were quoted in the Israeli press as saying they were prepared to use lethal force if necessary). But when events spun out of control and did not follow the scenario they'd planned, soldiers began acting on impulse and in completely disorganized fashion, which is fatal to a complicated operation such as this.
In the end, it WAS a massacre. A massacre caused by missed cues and obliviousness on both sides as to how aggressive behavior might be viewed by the other side. Of course, the preponderance of blame is on the Israeli side both because they initiated the encounter and because they had the overwhelming advantage in lethal force.
Lest anyone misunderstand, I am not trying to defend or whitewash the Israeli attack by understanding or explaining how it might've gone wrong.

I am coming closer and closer to believing that most of the nine (and perhaps as many as 15) were executed after they were subdued and wounded.

Tikun Olam

a Hebrew phrase that means "repairing the world." a practice should be followed NOT because it is required by Biblical law, but because it helps avoid social chaos.