 | By Blacklisted Dictator
June 11, 2010 | Share |
It's Official: There was No Humanitarian Aid on Mavi Marmara
by Gil Ronen
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has informed Israel's representatives the world over that there were never any humanitarian supplies or equipment aboard the Mavi Marmara, where Israeli commandos were ambushed by armed mercenaries posing as peace activists. The commandos opened fire and killed nine of the attackers after three soldiers had been brutalized and temporarily captured.
Of the seven flotilla ships that were intercepted by Israel on May 31 and afterward, only four were freight ships, the MFA reported to its embassies and consulates: The Challenger 1 (a small yacht), the Sfendonh (a small passenger boat) and the Mavi Marmara (a passenger ship) did not carry any humanitarian aid, and had only the passengers' personal belongings.
The four freight ships are the Gaza, the Sofia, the Defeny and the Rachel Corrie. As of June 7, Israel had only offloaded equipment from the Defeny. The equipment offloaded was loaded onto 26 trucks, and an additional eight trucks are waiting at the Kerem Shalom crossing to enter Gaza.
The equipment includes:
1. 300 wheelchairs
2. 300 new mobility scooters
3. 100 special mobility scooters for the disabled
4. Hundreds of crutches
5. 250 hospital beds
6. 50 sofas
7. Four tons of medicine
8. 20 tons of clothing, carpets, school bags, cloth and shoes
9. Various hospital equipment - closets and cabinets, operating theater equipment, etc.
10. Playground equipment
11. Mattresses
The equipment remaining at Ashdod Port on the three cargo ships which have not been offloaded include some 2000 tons of construction equipment - building materials and tools, and construction waste (rubble, toilets, sinks and cement) for re-use.
The MFA noted that:
The equipment does not constitute humanitarian aid in the accepted sense (basic foodstuffs, new and functional equipment, fresh medicines).
The humanitarian aid on the four cargo ships was scattered in the ships' holds and thrown onto piles and not packed properly for transport. The equipment was not packaged and not properly placed on wooden bases. Because of the improper packing, some of the equipment was crushed by the weight in transit.
The medicines and sensitive equipment (operating theater equipment, new clothing, etc.) are being kept in cool storage at the Defense Ministry base. Some of the medicines had already expired, and some will expire soon. The operating theater equipment, which should be kept sterile, was carelessly wrapped. A large part of the equipment, particularly shoes and clothing, was used and worn. (IsraelNationalNews.com)
Jon_i_Cohen
11 June, 2010 - 10:21
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And, further discredited by the so-called "eye witness" reports as reported today:-
'Witness' to Flotilla 'Murder' Admits She Was on Another Boat.
U.S. Army Col. (Ret.) Ann Wright, on a speaking tour of the United States on behalf of radical pacifist women's group Code Pink, bills herself as an eyewitness to the IDF raid on the Mavi Marmara and what she termed the “murder” of “nine innocent civilians.” However, in an interview with Aaron Lerner of IMRA, she admits she did not actually see the clash between the IDF soldiers and the armed passengers on board the Mavi Marmara.
Lerner asks questions about what she saw, but does not remind her that the confrontation took place between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m., in the dark of night (IDF footage of the raid was carried out with night vision equipment) when she admits to being on another ship.
In a promotional e-mail on behalf of "Code Pink: Women for Peace," Wright says: “I just returned from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and started my speaking tour last night in NYC to share what I witnessed aboard the flotilla, and what people can do to end the siege.”
“I witnessed the Israeli attack that killed 9 persons and wounded 50 on the Gaza Flotilla... the murder of nine persons... Tragically, it took another example of disproportionate use of force by the Israeli military that resulted in the deaths of nine innocent civilians to force many governments of the world to call for the Israelis to end the siege of Gaza.”
In the interview with Lerner she admitted that she was not aboard the Mavi Marmara but on a different ship, the Challenger, which was about 150 yards distant from the Marmara.
In the interview, Lerner asks Wright if she has seen the video that shows the passengers preparing weapons for attacking the soldiers.
Lerner: “You haven't seen the YouTube that shows the rods that had been cut and prepared and the piles of hatchets that were ready?”
Wright: “No, I haven't. I'm still in the process of catching up with all the stuff that's out there.”
She also claims that “the video” (apparently the same video that she said she did not see – ed.) stops at a certain point and does not show that “the captain of the ship and the director of the IHH came out of the wheelhouse and told the guys that were on top 'stop beating these soldiers up.'”
Lerner: Col. Wright I just want to make sure again – so you actually were on a different boat and did not witness the attack firsthand.
Wright: That's correct.
Lerner: So your witnessing is based on the information that you are getting from the other folks who were there.
Wright: My witness will be specifically what happened on our ship, the Challenger. And then I can comment on what happened in the very first three or four minutes as the Israeli commandos were trying to board the ship. We saw that from the stern of the ship. But after that that's when my witnessing from my own eyes of what happened on that ship would end.