An Israeli Soldier Speaks About The Flotilla Raid

Israel National News has a harrowing first-hand report from one of the naval commandos:

"Each soldier who descended was grabbed by three or four men and they simply exploded, beating him up. They lynched us.

"They had metal clubs, knives, slingshots, glass bottles…At one point there was also live fire.

"I was among the last to descend, and I saw that the group was dispersed, everyone in his own corner surrounded by three or four men. I saw a soldier on the floor with two men beating him. I peeled them off of him and they came at me and began beating me with the clubs.

"That's how I broke my arm. At that moment I had no weapon in my hands, like everyone else who descended on the cables empty-handed. My paintball gun was behind me.

"They came and attacked me, I brought them down to the floor, I took a few steps back, I took out my paintball gun, they came at me, and I shot at their legs. One of the clubs destroyed my paint gun and I moved on to my pistol which was the only thing to hold against them. At this point my arm no longer functioned.

"From the opening of the corridor, they were shooting at us the entire time with live fire"

"[They were] about 30 men; they simply came for war. We came to straighten things out, to speak to those who went downstairs, but each of us who descended was simply attacked.

"There were some from my group that were thrown to the lower floor, and the passengers took their equipment. They jumped to the water as a last resort. We were told that if they didn't listen, we should shoot at their legs with the paintball gun. 'The pistol is only for if you really feel your life is in danger, which shouldn't happen. It would be extremely abnormal.' But in the end, that is what happened.

"We came with the intention of stopping the ship and taking it to Ashdod, and we did not come with the weapons we usually have; we came for something entirely different."

Fiamma Nirenstein reports:

"At four in the morning, a firsthand witness Carmela Menashe, a military reporter who mercilessly uncovered many scandals in the Israeli army, declared that when soldiers from the Israeli Navy tried to get off the ship they were welcomed with gunfire. 'There were firearms on the ship' of the pacifists; the soldiers that touched the bridge faced a lynching 'like that of Ramallah' in which human limbs were thrown into the crowd. They used, with enormous impetuosity according to recounts, iron bars, knives and gas. The Israeli soldiers were thrown into the hold of the ship by the 'pacifists' in an attempt to either kidnap or throw them into the sea. This explains why their mates fired. Of course, the sailors were not part of a military, they were civilians: but, by now, in asymmetric warfare civilians are used as human shields and combatants."

Here is an official statement from Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren.