Israeli Army Chief Gabi Ashkenazi today announced that the only problem with the Israeli attack on the Mavi Marmara on May 31 was that the troops did not use enough force, insisting that the helicopters should have sprayed the deck with live ammunition before attempting to board the ship full of humanitarian aid.
Ashkenazi further claimed that he had “proof” that the aid workers on board the ship had guns, though the Israeli military found no actual guns on board. He cited a bullet fragment that he said did not match standard Israeli issued ammo as proof that the phantom guns must have existed.
The Israeli claims of mythical “terrorists” on the ship are not new, as Deputy FM Danny Ayalon at one point claimed 75 “al-Qaeda mercenaries” were hiding on the ship, heavily armed, and yet somehow none of them nor their weapons were ever found when the ship was captured.
Yet the only actual evidence Israel was able to produce on the ship, apart from a large number of electric wheelchairs and a crate of stuffed animals, were a couple of cobbled together slingshots and a bunch of pieces of the ship ostensibly used as clubs. Israeli troops killed nine aid workers on the ship, including eight Turkish citizens and one American. US officials lauded the attack.