Jerusalem – The IDF released footage of the Monday raid on the “Free Gaza” flotilla, which depicted passengers upon the ship attacking soldiers with various weapons, including a large metal pole and other metal objects.
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In a brief interview with soldiers aboard the ships, one soldier said that the attack “looked like the Ramallah lynch.”
An Israeli military spokesman said some of the commandos were equipped with paintball guns but the non-lethal weapons were not enough against activists who charged in with batons.
“They had pistols with live ammunition as back-up, to defend themselves,” he said.
One of the commandos told reporters he descended by rope from a helicopter onto one of the six ships in the convoy and was immediately attacked by a group of people waiting for them.
“They beat us with metal sticks and knives,” he said. “There was live fire at some point against us.”
A Reuters cameraman on the Israeli navy ship Kidon close to the six-vessel aid convoy said commanders monitoring the operation were surprised by the strong resistance put up by the pro-Palestinian activists.
One of the commandos said some of the soldiers were stripped of their helmets and equipment and a number were tossed from the top deck to a lower deck and then leapt into the sea to save themselves.
“They jumped me, hit me with clubs and bottles and stole my rifle,” one of the commandos said. “I pulled out my pistol and had no choice but to shoot.”
The soldiers said they were forced to open fire after the activists struck one of their comrades in the head and trampled on him. A senior field commander ordered the soldiers then to respond with fire, a decision which the commandos said received full backing the military echelon.
Israel should act with its enemies like Russia does with the Chechnians. You start up with us we kill you. To hell with a world that we will never please and hates us, including the present US administration. People respect force and conviction. end of story.
There are rumors that an Israeli soldier is killed.
this video is very unclear and one needs to beleive what they claim is being shown here.
when will israel learn There is no excuse why even one soldier should have been wounded. Why where the Israeli not prepared??? and at the first attack on our Achaini bnei Yisroel the Tzahal should have knocked the crap out of all these fardorbeneh behaimos.
We will never please the UN we might as well protect ourselves.
Who in the world cares about these stupid videos? The world is blind when it comes to Jews. Stop trying to Justify themselves. It was botched up because they dropped the soldiers one at a time and had they done nothing “no weapons were found on ships” the Flotillas mission woould not have been a cvictory. The Jews know our sonim and don’t need a video- and the goyim are indiiferent if they can criticize Jews. Save it for court.. The “gentleman doth protest too much with the video”
Israel did two stupid things. First, it should have just ignored the ships, they would have then gotten little attention. Now they have more attention than they could have ever dreamed.
Second, if Israel felt the ships must be stopped, then it should have waited until they reached its territorial waters.
Ymach shmo Yasser Arafat organized a hijacking on the Achillo Lauro an Italian cruise ship. An American disabled Jew in a wheel chair was pushed into the sea by the poor Palestinians and drowned. Don’t forget Rabbi Weiss embraced Arafat. The world watched just as theyu watched Jews gassed in Birkenau. The USAF bombed Ploesti with heavy losses and did not stop the flow of oil but could have bombed Birkenau and Eichmann would not have been able to ship Hungarian Jews in the gas chambers
I cannot believe that Israeli Army Brass were not smart enough to know that they would be attacked when they boarded a large ship teeming with violent angry terrorists and their supporters. This is further proof that the Israeli Army has been filled with left wingers. I mean the soldiers had paint ball guns? Why didn’t the soldiers use tear gas and stink grenades to clear the decks before landing? Why didn’t the soldiers land in mass to prevent being overwhelmed? Don’t tell me they don’t know how violent these Arabs are. I think the Commanders need to lose their jobs. This is why the Gilad Shalit disaster occured. They sent left wing college kids to guard the boarder with Gaza !!! Then we are surprised they are attacked and overrun and killed and taken hostage. The same thing happened on the Lebanon Boarder. They send kids to sit in a jeep on the boarder alone and are surprised when Hizbullah overrun them and kill them and take them hostage. Something stinks in the Army Command.
So go ahead and exterminate a boatload of civilians………WHAT gives them the right to board a ship in INTERNATIONAL WATERS full of civilians?? Can anyone answer that question??
The idf should have outsources the job to the north korean navy. They don’t value human life and the world turned a blind eye when they murdered south korean sailors.
If Israel had just torpedoed the ships then no soldiers would have been wounded.
the arabs flagged this youtube video as inappropriate.
Shame on them!
You won’t find any of this footage on CNN , Al Jazeera, MSNBC , or any other mainstream media link!!!
to #7 israel was allowed to board a ship within its economic zone? of approx 200 miles if it suspects anything.
I believe the IDF did the right thing here given the circumstances. To avoid such confrontations in the future. I would suggest the IDF add a sonic blaster (“less-lethal” audio weapon) to their arsenal. The device sounds like a loud siren, and forces people to leave the area of interest and if the protesters do not leave immediately, the weapon can cause side effects such as “vertigo, nausea, and pain in the chest.”
that’s what u get when they tzcheppe ehrlicher yidden like the violence against chareidi demonstraters & mix in to the chinuch of chareidim.
Just sink the next ship. Who cares about a bunch of sonei Yisroel.
Now we will get another report from goldstone
Wow, after watching those videos I feel they should have nuked these bastards right out of the water right then and there.
It was all orchestrated by Iran to create world outrage so that Israel will not strike again against their reactor.
It’s easy to second guess. However, any objective analysis has to conclude that despite IDF assurances issued as late as yesterday that they trained for any possibility and expected this to be a routine seizure operation, this was a military and diplomatic disaster for Israel. The fallout –
1 Ehud Barak will have to resign
2 Turkey will completely sever diplomatic relations with Israel
3 Israel will be forced to ease their military blockade of Gaza
This was a disaster of monumental proportions.
Peace activists with daggers in their hands?
I once heard someone call them piece activists they cut people into pieces.
My advice to Israel is: Next time tell them to turn around or tornado the ship like any normal county would do, give these so called peace men a sea burial.
As for Turkey recall your consul, & cut off all ties & relationships, for them sending dagger clad piece people.
Don’t chase them, let them be a known enemy, make freinds with Greece & Cypress, Turkey’s arch enemies.
Start reaching out to the Kurds in Turkey Iran & Seria to promote their independence which they have been denied for years.
Ignore Turkey.
Every person in that mission, from the commandos on the deck, all the way up to Netanyahu acted foolishly. They risked Jewish lives needlessly. A submarine could have quitely knocked out the engines of all but one ship, and they would have had no choice but to all board the remaining ship and go home. Then they should have sunk the passengerless ships.
I just saw the news on TV and it is clear that the Arabs overwhelmed the Commandos and beat them and threw them around like toys. I am in shock. Why did the Army Command did not prepare for this? How could they not have known they would be attacked? This is a disgraceful loss of deterence. The Arabs will be so emboldened to attack Israel now that the famed Sayeret has been totally defeated by amateurs with rods and knives. We need to daven for HKBH to protect Isreael. This is a clear message that only by Yiras Shemayim will Israel be protected. Tel Aviv Mayor attacks Cheredim. Livni attacks the Chereidi school system. The eruv in Yerushalayim IHK is destroyed. Now the Israeli Army has completely failed a simple operation. Watch the news, the Nations are smelling the blood of our Am Yisrael. I am so disgusted. This is the result of Israeli Politician’s and the Army’s reliance on “Kochi v’atzum yadi.” They are fools. Incompetant fools who have destroyed the competance of the Army and the Government because of a lack of Yiras Shomayim. Daven. Daven. Daven. Teshuvah, Tefillah, Tzedakah maavirim es roah hagazeirah.
All the Navy should have done is disabled the engines on all the ships and towed them back to Cyprus. Fools. Incompetent fools.
We cannot let our soldiers die in the hand of the so called peace activists, the whole ship should have been blown up. Down with the enemy of Israel! Just wait and see how the Kenaim will scream “Hisgaros BeUmos” and taking the side of the enemy.
It looks like simchas torah in Rodney
Please note everyone that the photo of the guy with the knife is a photoshop job. Note that the people standing behind are very calm taking photographs while the wild guy is about to stab someone (he would have been shot already!). He is also out of proportion to the rest of the people in the photo. Finally, the attack took place at 4AM and in the back of this photo you see daylight. So it is obviously a fake merged photo.
Someone is doing a valiant job of justifying the actions of the Navy. However, since the vessel was a humanitarian vessel not headed to the State of Israel but to besieged Gaza under occupation of the State of Israel, it did not have any right to do what it did. Otherwise the entire ocean would be filled with acts of war of each country attacking vessels of another in international waters. Now, please tell us: if IRAN had committed this act, what would be your response, pray tell?!!
By the way, is there ANYTHING that the State of Israel EVER does wrong in relation to ANYBODY????!!
I feel like fling to Israel and blowing up these so-called “peace activists”. Yemach Shemom! What Chutzpa do they have to raise a hand on our soldiers when they didn’t even have their weapons in position?
At least we have a decent President that has the knowledge not to jump to conclusions
Raboysay, just imagine what you’d be saying if it was IRAN who had done this act in international waters!!!
should israel stop digging kevarim, they would not have any problems.
they hate and fight the religious yidden, then the worldl hates and fights israel.
First, those videos where things are being highlighted from far away are very unclear. Am I supposed to believe that the Demonstrators were using stun grenades and fire bombs because whomever posted the video said they were? Sorry, that’s not how logic works, if it was then Iraq did have WMDs!
Second, in the close up video the only weapons that clearly are the sling shots, sticks and scary looking Muslim activists. No offence, but big bloody deal! The reaction just shows how paranoid Israel has become, it’s hardly justification for deadly force. Frankly, those weapons and the Demonstrators actions aren’t equivalent to the power of the Israeli military. If Israel wants to do something rogue and useful it should bomb Iranian nuclear facilities or something.
Third, let’s not forget that the IDF just attacked a Turkish vessel in international waters. Two crimes right there. Forget the blockade and whether or not it’s justified, attacking a NATO aligned ship in international waters is in it of itself an illegal act and an extreme provocation of the alliance. Should Israel not apologize for its actions they’ve technically made themselves enemies of a NATO state.
Hello, the article doesn’t say that the Israeli soldiers main weapon (the rifle) was a PAINT BALL GUN!! Could you believe it? (You could actually see the PAINT BALL GUN being used at :51 in the last video [identifiable by the round canister attached to the top of the weapon where the paint balls are stored]).
They have a backup small handgun if their life is in danger. They eventually went to that backup gun and that’s how they saved their lives.
Ehud Barak who probably was on top of this political decision, to take away their main weapons, must resign in shame.
israel only made one mistake-they should have sunk the ship-end of story
they should of sank the boat no surviovors no witnessess
I think I am just repeating a lot of our thoughts.
1. Israel need NOT justify protecting its borders and its policies
2. Israel HAS TO try all of these anarchists who try to defy the government of an independent State
3. Next time Israel should warn the ship that it is entering a war zone (as in fact this was) and if it doesn’t obey instructions immediately it is considered an enemy combatant force and will be torpedoed and sinked.
End of Story.
Just imagine, during the Russia Georgia conflict last year if the US ship would have not received permission from the Russian navy to dock in Georgia during the war.
Russia would have sank the US ship. Period.
There is war there, it’s a war zone, it’s military situations. This is not a protest. This is an action of war, and they need to be told, treated and handled that way.
I feel bad for any of our soldiers that have to go through this.
The only ‘political fallout’ comes from left wing anti-semite morons like you who think that stopping a blockade busting ship is an ‘attack’.
While I support Israel, purely from a legal perspective, the UN (for better or for worse…or should I just say for worse) is the international governing body, and they have ruled that:
1) Israel is occupying Gaza, ergo
2) the blockade is illegal, ergo
3) forcefully boarding a ship in international waters in an effort to prevent such shop from crossing said blockage…is…you guessed it, illegal.
I, as most readers of this blog, do not subscribe to the first premise, and therefore could care little about the remaining two…but we are unfortunately not the governing body.
next time they should be armed with teddy bears. … the stupidity of Israeli chief of staff is unbelievable. Next time just disable the engines or drop some teargas first.