The 56-page UN report forms a comprehensive indictment of Israeli actions, which includes these findings:
The conduct of the Israeli military and other personnel towards the flotilla passengers was not only totally disproportionate to the occasion but demonstrated levels of totally unnecessary and incredible violence. It constituted “grave violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law”
‘Systematic humiliation and violent treatment of passengers’, and the ‘shocking’ and ‘gratuitous’ use of violence.
No evidence that the passengers fired or had firearms (para 165)
No effort was made to minimise injuries at certain stages of the operation and that the use of live fire was done in an extensive and arbitrary manner. “It is difficult not to conclude that, once the order to use live fire had been given, no one was safe,” the report states. “It seems a matter of pure chance that there were not more fatalities as a result.” (para 169)
There was a “prevailing climate of fear of violence that had a dehumanizing effect on all those detained on board.” (para 178)
Two passengers received wounds compatible with being shot at close range while lying on the ground (para 118)
None of the four passengers who were killed in a separate incident - including a photographer - “posed any threat to the Israeli forces,” (para 120)
Force used by the Israeli soldiers in intercepting the Challenger I, the Sfendoni and the Eleftheri Mesogios was unnecessary, disproportionate, excessive and inappropriate and amounted to violations of the right to physical integrity (para 173)
The factual circumstances provide prima facie evidence that protected persons suffered violations of international humanitarian law including wilful killing, torture or inhuman treatment and wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health within the terms of Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions (para 182).
Passengers were “jeered at and taunted by the people on the quay,” in a way that passengers found to be “unsettling and humiliating.” (para 185)
Passengers were “beaten or physically abused for refusing to sign or for advising others not to sign,” papers at the airport.
Passengers were subjected to a series of meticulous searches, including strip searches with a number describing the process as being “deliberately degrading and humiliating, accompanied by taunts, provocative and insulting language and physical abuse.” (para 189).
The wife of one of the deceased passengers was treated with complete insensitivity to her bereavement (para 194)
“Extreme and unprovoked” violence was perpetrated by uniformed Israeli personnel upon passengers at the airport, accounts of which were “so consistent and vivid as to be beyond question.” (para 202)
Unarmed passengers were baton charged at the airport, “In the foray,” the report states, “around 30 passengers were beaten to the ground, kicked and punched in a sustained attack by soldiers.”
A doctor clearly identified as such was kicked and punched (para 207)
Israeli military and police personnel at the airport exhibited behaviour much of which “was surely criminal under domestic Israeli law.” (para 209)
The wounded were handcuffed to their beds using standard metal handcuffs and that sometimes their feed was shackled when they were held in Israeli hospitals.
The Israeli authorities confiscated a large amount of video and photographic footage and that this confiscation “represents a deliberate attempt by the Israeli authorities to suppress or destroy evidence, “ (paras 240-1)
Withholding and sometimes destroying private property of passengers “represents both a violation of rights related to property ownership and to the freedom of expression,” (para 245)
In prison, passengers were subjected to “sleep deprivation and denial of access to a lawyer,” (para 251)·
Acts of torture were committed by Israeli officials against passengers during their period of detention in Israel (para 219)