JERUSALEM — A commission appointed by Israel’s government concluded Sunday that the country’s military did not violate international law in carrying out a deadly commando raid last spring against a protest ship that was attempting to deliver humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip in defiance of Israel’s naval blockade.
The panel blamed activists on board the ship for instigating the violence, which ended in the shooting deaths of nine Turkish passengers, including one with dual U.S. citizenship.
Critics dismissed the panel’s findings, saying its members were incapable of conducting an objective probe.
“It’s a whitewash, just as we expected,” said Audrey Bomse, attorney for the Free Gaza Movement, one of the organizers of the May 2010 flotilla. “You don’t ask a criminal to investigate his own criminality.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday that the committee’s 280-page report proved Israel’s response was justified.
“Soldiers were defending our country and defending themselves,” he said.
The Turkel commission, named after retired Israeli Supreme Court Justice Yaakov Turkel, was formed in June amid international criticism that Israel’s military used excessive force during the early-morning raid of the Mavi Marmara as it sailed with other protest boats in international waters off Israel’s coast.
Among other things, the commission found that Israel Defense Forces were justified in using firearms against a group of activists that had overwhelmed the commandos with iron bars, slingshots and knives. It rejected as inconclusive the military’s claim that some activists had brought weapons on board but found evidence that a few activists seized guns from commandos and used them against Israeli forces.
“Overall the IDF personnel acted professionally in the face of extensive and unanticipated violence,” the commission wrote in its report.
Video footage of the raid showed commandos rappelling from helicopters and being quickly overcome by passengers. Some commandos were taken below deck while others jumped overboard to escape or were thrown off the upper deck. Nine Israelis were wounded.
The raid severely strained diplomatic relations with Turkey, which is historically Israel’s strongest ally in the region. The Turks have been demanding that Israel apologize and compensate the victims.
On Sunday, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters in Ankara, the Turkish capital, that the panel’s report had “no value or credibility.”
In Gaza, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum condemned the panel’s report and said it would “give Israeli soldiers a green light to continue their crimes against the Palestinians and those who come to support the Palestinian cause by trying to break the siege imposed on Gaza.”
