Above photo: Palestinians in the Port of Gaza wave the Palestinian flag at a rally in support of the Freedom Flotilla III. Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
International water near Gaza – Contrary to Israeli claims that the Marianne was taken peacefully, this video shows that armed commandos used brutal violence against unarmed passengers aboard the Gaza-bound boat early on Monday.
According to the organizers of the flotilla, 14 of the 18 civilian passengers and crew remain in Israeli custody more than two days after they were violently abducted in international waters to prevent them breaking the Israeli-imposed siege on Gaza.
Palestinian citizen of Israel and member of the Israeli parliament Basel Ghattas, former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki, Spanish European Parliament member Ana Miranda and Israeli journalist Ohad Hemo have been released.
The other passengers remain in detention at Givon prison in present-day Israel.
Violent attack
The video shows Ghattas addressing officers on an Israeli naval ship through a megaphone.
Ghattas says that he is not in command of the Marianne but is speaking with the captain’s permission. He offers the Israelis that they send one unarmed person onto the Marianne to talk to the captain.
VIDEO Teasers and violence; so much for ‘uneventful’. IDF violence against Mariane peaceful sailors https://t.co/BLmfPwGWCJ #FreedomFlotilla
— Freedom Flotilla (@GazaFFlotilla) June 30, 2015
The Israeli officer asks, “You’re suggesting that one of us come aboard unarmed?”
Ghattas responds: “Unarmed, he boards the ship and we talk to him.”
The offer appears to have been rejected as the video – first released by Israeli media – then shows the Israeli commandos announcing their intention to forcibly seize the boat.
The Israeli officer also lectures the passengers that they are on their way to “support a regime that has the same ideology as those who committed act of terror on your coast” – an apparent reference to the massacre of tourists on a Tunisian beach which has no connection whatsoever to Gaza or the people or groups in it.
Not only that, but Islamic State, the group that claimed the Tunisia attack, recently threatened all-out waragainst the Palestinian resistance group Hamas which runs the interior of Gaza.
One of the passengers then replies, “Why this bullshit? We are not supporting any regime.”
The video then apparently shows Israeli commandos attacking a screaming passenger with a Taser – an electrical stun gun. Someone is heard to shout, “Stop, stop what you’re doing!”
The video then also shows the invaders speaking again with Ghattas, addressing him as a member of Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.
Ghattas tells them: “you are now attacking a ship on international waters.”
An Israeli continues to make violent threats, saying “we don’t want to hurt you.”
The faces of the Israeli attackers are obscured, something likely done to protect them from possible prosecution over what flotilla organizers have previously termed an act of piracy.