Action Alert

[Free Gaza Movement]

TAKE ACTION!
Gaza Flotilla survivors recount tales of terror, brutality and fear for
their lives

Please TAKE ACTION and DEMAND that the United Nations launch an
independent investigation into the Israeli attack against unarmed relief
ships in the Freedom Flotilla. DEMAND that the international community
stop simply condemning Israel’s brutal and illegal blockade of Gaza – and
start doing something to end it!

CONTACT
UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon
The United Nations, New York NY 10017
tel: +1 212 963 5012
fax: +1 212 963 2155
email: sg@un.org

Updated survivor testimonies available at:
<http://www.freegaza.org/boat-trips/survivor-testimonies>

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Testimony from passengers aboard the Freedom Flotilla

Haneen Zuabi
Member of Parliament, Israeli Knesset
“Israel had days to plan this military operation. They wanted many deaths
to terrorise us and to send a message that no future aid convoys should
try to break the siege of Gaza.”

Sarah Colborne
Director of campaigns and operations, PSC, United Kingdom
“I couldn’t even count the amount of ships that were in the water. It was
literally bristling with ships, helicopters and gunfire. It was horrific,
absolutely horrific. …Israeli forces handcuffed members of the
activists’ medical team who were sent to help treat the injured. It was
terrifying…If you talked they pointed a gun at you. …We wrote a sign
in Hebrew saying, ‘SOS! Need medical assistance. People are dying. Urgent’
Hanin Zoabi, who’s a Knesset member, an Israeli Knesset member, took that
sign to the front-to the back of the boat, where the soldiers were
pointing at her. They ordered her to go back.”

Henning Mankell
Bestselling Swedish crime author
“It was an act of piracy. We were actually kidnapped. …On the ship I was
on, they found one weapon: my razor. And they actually came up and showed
it off, my razor, so you see what level this was at.”

Professor Norman Paech
Member of Parliament (ret.), Germany
“We had not prepared in any way to fight. We didn’t even consider it
because we knew very well that we would have absolutely no chance against
soldiers like this. …The Israeli government justifies the raid because
they were attacked. This is absolutely not the case.”

Annette Groth
Member of Parliament, Germany
“It was like war. They had guns, taser weapons, some type of tear gas and
other weaponry, compared to two-and-a-half wooden sticks we had between
us. [For Israel] to talk of self-defence is ridiculous. …The scandal is
that we have to fight the Israeli images only with words. The Israelis
confiscated all the activists’ cameras, computers, and mobile phones.”

Iara Lee
Brazilian Filmmaker (based in San Francisco)
“(The attack) was a surprise, because it happened in the middle of the
night, in the darkness, in international waters, because we knew there
would be a confrontation but not in international waters. Their first
tactic was to cut all of our satellite communications and then they
attacked. All I witnessed first hand was the shooting. They came on board
and started shooting at people. …We expected them to shoot people in the
legs, to shoot in the air, just to scare people, but they were direct.
Some of them shot in the passengers’ heads. Many people were murdered – it
was unimaginable.”

Jamal El-Shayyal
Journalist from Al Jazeera
“…as this attack started I was on the top deck and within just a few
minutes there were live shots being fired from above the ship from above
from where the helicopters were. The first shots that were fired were some
sort of sound grenades. There was some tear gas that was fired as well as
rubber coated steel bullets. They were fired initially and the live
bullets came roughly about five minutes after that, after those initial
shots were fired.

“There was definitely fire from the air because one of the people who was
killed was clearly shot from above. He was…the bullet targeted him at
the top of his head. There was also fire coming from the sea as well. Most
of the fire initially from the sea was tear gas canisters and sound
grenades. But then it became live fire. There is no doubt from what I saw
that live ammunition was fired before any Israeli soldier was on deck.

“[From the top deck] you could almost see the soldiers pointing their guns
down through some sort of hole or compartment at the bottom side of the
helicopter, firing almost indiscriminately without even looking where they
were firing and those bullets were definitely live bullets. There was a
Knesset member who approached the Israeli soldiers saying we have injured,
she was saying they have injured people, please come and take them. Yet
the Israelis refused. Three hours later all three of those people that
were injured ended up dying on the spot because no one came to take them.”

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