GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Activists in Gaza City on Sunday marked five years since Israel's deadly attack on the first Freedom Flotilla in 2010, a day after the ship leading Freedom Flotilla III arrived in the port of Bueu in Spain en route to Gaza. Israeli naval forces killed nine activists On May 31, 2010 after they stormed six ships intending to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The incident took place in international waters and sparked international outcry. Sunday's commemoration ceremony was organized by Miles of Smiles, an international Gaza aid campaign, and was attended by dozens of activists. The participants held up photos of the victims of the first flotilla and chanted slogans demanding freedom for Gaza and Palestine. They then sailed a short distance off the coast and threw roses into the water in honor of the victims, also raising the flags of the countries participating in the current flotilla. In a press conference in Gaza port, a spokesperson for Miles ...

KONYA, Turkey (AFP) -- Turkey hopes to soon close a difficult chapter with Israel sparked by a deadly commando raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla of aid ships in 2010, Turkish foreign minister told AFP. Nine pro-Palestinian Turkish activists were killed in the Israeli assault, sparking a major crisis between the long-time regional allies and compensation claims from the victims' families. In the diplomatic tussle since, "the gap between the expectations of the two sides is closing," Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told AFP in an interview on Wednesday. "Progress has been made to a great extent, but the two sides need to meet again for a final agreement," he said. Sticking points have been the amount of compensation and the legal status of the deal, but Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said earlier this week that an agreement would soon be signed. He said that after Turkish local elections Sunday -- seen as a major electoral test for Prime Minister Re...

GAZA -- A ceremony to commemorate the victims of the Mavi Marmara raid was held on the third anniversary on Friday at Gaza port. Kemal Ozturk, the Anadolu Agency Executive Board Chairman and Director General, who was in Gaza for the inauguration of the agency's Gaza office, delivered a speech at the ceremony where authorities representing the Foreign Ministry of Palestine in Gaza and the Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) and head of Anadolu Agency Arabic Desk Turan Kislakci were also present. Ozturk stated the Mavi Marmara flotilla attack marked one of the deepest sorrows of Turkey in history. Stating that nine people were killed and tens others were wounded, Ozturk said, "I'd like to say something to the brave children of Palestine. The Palestine issue is the issue of all Muslims. And the Muslim community expects one thing from you. They expect Palestinian brothers reconcile. And hopefully we will be first to announce their news o...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has launched a preliminary inquiry into an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla which left nine Turkish activists dead. ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said it would establish whether there were grounds for a full investigation. The move follows a request from the Comoros islands, in which one of the vessels was registered. The boats were trying to transport aid supplies to Gaza in May 2010. The Free Gaza Flotilla, which had more than 600 pro-Palestinian activists aboard several ships, was trying to break Israel's naval blockade. The activists were killed when Israeli commandos boarded the lead flotilla vessel, Mavi Marmara. "My office will be conducting a preliminary examination in order to establish whether the criteria for opening an investigation are met," Ms Bensouda said in a statement on Tuesday. more

JERUSALEM (Reuters) -- Israel did not commit to ending its Gaza blockade as part of reconciliation with Turkey and could clamp down even harder on the Palestinian enclave if security is threatened, a senior Israeli official said on Sunday. After Friday's US-brokered fence-mending announcement, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Israel had met his demands to apologize for killing nine Turks aboard a Gaza-bound activist ship in 2010, pay compensation and ease the blockade. But during the almost three-year rift between the ex-allies, Erdogan had routinely insisted that Israel end the blockade. The rapprochement deal noted Israel's relaxing of curbs on Gaza's civilian imports in that period and pledged "to continue to work to improve" Palestinians' humanitarian situation. more

On Thursday 17th January, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, confirmed that Israel is ready to send an apology letter to Turkey over Mavi Marmara incident, such as the one Washington sent to Pakistan over the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers. According to Daily HURRIYET Turkish newspaper, that after 32 months of the Mavi Marmara incident, Ayalon said that he was seeing some kind of improvement opportunities in Turkey-Israel relations and that Israel was ready to apologize. more

Turkey puts four former Israeli military commanders, including the head of the army, on trial in absentia this week for the 2010 killing of nine Turks on a Gaza-bound aid ship. The trial, which begins in Istanbul on Tuesday, will further test relations between the one-time strategic allies and has been dismissed by Israel as a "show trial" and "political theatre." Relations between the Jewish state and what was once its only Muslim ally, crumbled after Israeli marines stormed the Mavi Marmara aid ship in May 2010 to enforce a naval blockade of the Palestinian-run Gaza Strip and killed nine Turks in clashes with activists on board. The rift has continued despite U.S. efforts to encourage a rapprochement between the two regional powers whose cooperation it needs to address changes sweeping the Middle East. Israel and NATO member Turkey, which both border Syria, once shared intelligence information and conducted joint military exercises, cooperation which h...

Freedom Sailors is a first-hand account of the first successful attempt to break the Israeli siege of the Gaza Strip by sailing two boats into Gaza City, a port that had been closed to international ship traffic since Israel initiated the 1967 war. With contributions from 24 persons who either took part in the sailing or helped organize it, the book takes us from the initial inception of the idea through the drama of organizing the voyage while keeping the details secret from Israel’s prying eyes to the final jubilant welcome by tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza on 23 August 2008. Freedom Sailors offers an often-riveting narrative and gives important information about the inhumane consequences of Israel’s siege. But this book may ultimately be valued simply for documenting the fact that a group of ordinary people came up with an extraordinary idea that succeeded in calling world attention to the plight of Gaza’s 1.6 million people. Knowing what we know now, it was also an extre...

By Ali Abunimah (Electronic Intidfada) “There are some Americans we’re better off without. Furkan Dogan is one of them.” - The Guardian’s Joshua Treviño on 3 June 2010. Today, despite the uproar over his incitement to murder Americans, Joshua Treviño was allowed to debut his new regular column at The Guardian. The Guardian is sticking to the fiction that Treviño’s tweet of 25 June 2011 in which he wrote, “Dear IDF: If you end up shooting any Americans on the new Gaza flotilla – well, most Americans are cool with that. Including me,” was a one-off and somehow not representative or typical. Why won’t the Guardian correct these lies? Guardian editors were as of today still directing readers to a so-called “clarification” Treviño wrote on 16 August in which he told the following bald-faced lie: any reading of my tweet of 25 June 2011 that holds that I applauded, encouraged, or welcomed the death of fellow human beings, is wrong, and out of step with my life and record. In fact Treviño reg...

By Ali Abunimah (Electronic Intifada) Earlier today, Al Jazeera published my article “What’s gone wrong at the Guardian” about the newspaper’s decision to hire Joshua Treviño, a right-wing ideologue who openly called for Israel to murder unarmed civilians and journalists attempting to sail to Gaza in June 2011 and gloated at the killing of civilians aboard the Mavi Marmara a year earlier. A few hours after my article appeared, I received a surprising email from the Guardian’s press office: Josh Trevino is not a correspondent for the Guardian. He is a freelance writer on contract to write opinion pieces. His articles will appear on the Guardian’s Comment is Free section of the site (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/us-edition) along with articles from many other freelance writers. Thank you in advance for making this correction. Did I make a mistake in referring to Treviño as a “correspondent” in my Al Jazeera article, and in my original blog post of 15 August, the day his appoi...

ISTANBUL: Thousands of people rallied in Istanbul Thursday to remember the nine victims of a deadly Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on this date two years ago. The crowd gathered in iconic Taksim Square under the banner of the pro-Islamic Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH), one of the organisers of the flotilla that tried to break an Israeli sea blockade of the Hamas-controlled Palestinian territory. The demonstrators, many of them women, chanted slogans and waved banners against Israel, once a strong regional ally of Turkey, and asked that the perpetrators of the raid be held accountable. more

A Turkish court has charged four senior Israeli military commanders over the killing of nine Turkish activists trying to reach Gaza in 2010. Ex-military chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and former heads of military intelligence, the navy and air force are expected to be tried in absentia. The nine pro-Palestinian activists were killed after Israeli troops boarded their ship, the Mavi Marmara. They had been hoping to breach Israel's naval blockade and deliver aid to Gaza. A prosecutor at the court in Istanbul has called for each of the four Israeli officers to face nine life sentences, Turkish news agency Anatolia reported. The other three commanders are ex-naval chief Vice Admiral Eliezer Marom, former head of military intelligence Major General Amos Yadlin, and former head of the air force Brigadier General Avishai Lev. Israel has refused to co-operate with any prosecution of those who took part in the attack. If they are convicted, the Turkish court could issue a warrant for their a...

Turkey has issued arrest warrants for four former senior Israel Defense Forces officers and plans to indict them over the deaths of nine Turkish nationals during a botched raid on a Turkish-sponsored flotilla to Gaza in 2010. The officers in question are former IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, former Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin, former commander of the navy Eliezer Marom, and former head of air force intelligence Avishai Levi. The four are accused of giving the orders for the raid on the Mavi Marmara, in which nine Turks were killed after passengers brutally assaulted the naval commandos who boarded the ship. According to the Turkish newspaper Sabah, the officers will be arrested if they ever set foot in Turkey. Local experts in international law noted that Turkey could ask Interpol to issue a so-called "red notice" for the four, in which case they would be liable to be arrested any time they visited any country that is a member of Interpol. more

ISTANBUL (AP) — The Hamas premier of the Gaza Strip has visited a ship docked in Turkey that in 2010 was the target of a deadly raid by Israeli troops seeking to prevent an aid flotilla reaching the Palestinian territory. The visit Monday by Ismail Haniyeh was a show of solidarity with the Islamic aid group IHH, which had planned to send the Mavi Marmara vessel with another Gaza flotilla last year but then dropped the plan. On the Istanbul dock, Haniyeh denounced the Israeli blockade of Gaza. more

Turkish newspaper Sabah has printed a list of 174 names of Israeli soldiers it says were involved in the Mavi Marmara massacre: Agai Yehezkel, Aharon Haliwa, Alex Shakliar, Amir Ulo, Amir Abste, Amir Shimon Ashel, Anna Strelski, Anton Siomin, Aram Zehavi, Ariel Brickman, Ariel Karo, Ariel Rifkin, Ariel Yochanan, Arnon Avital, Assaf Bryt, Avi Balut, Avi Bnayahu, Avi Mizrakhi, Avi Peled, Aviad Perri, Aviel Siman, Avihay Wizman, Avihu Ben Zahar, Avishay Levi, Avishay Shasha, Aviv Edri, Aviv Kochavi, Aviv Mendelowitz, Baruch (Barry) Berlinsky, Basam Alian, Ben-Zion (Benzi) Gruver, Bnaya Sarel, Boaz Dabush, Boaz Rubin, Boris Schuster, Dado Bar- Kalifa, Dan Dolberg, Dan Harel, Daniel Kotler, David Shapira, David Slovozkoi, David Zini, Eden Atias, Eden Atias, Efraim Aviad Tehila, Efraim Avni, Eitan Ben-Gad, Elad Chachkis, Elad Itzik, Elad Shoshan, Elad Yakobson, Eli Fadida, Eli Yafe, Eliezer Shkedi, Elik Sror, Eran Karisi, Erez Sa'adon, Eyal Eizenberg, Eyal Handelman, Eyal Zukowsky, Gil S...

(Reuters) - Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip violates international law, a panel of human rights experts reporting to a U.N. body said on Tuesday, disputing a conclusion reached by a separate U.N. probe into Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship. The so-called Palmer Report on the Israeli raid of May 2010 that killed nine Turkish activists said earlier this month that Israel had used unreasonable force in last year's raid, but its naval blockade of the Hamas-ruled strip was legal. A panel of five independent U.N. rights experts reporting to the U.N. Human Rights Council rejected that conclusion, saying the blockade had subjected Gazans to collective punishment in "flagrant contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law." The four-year blockade deprived 1.6 million Palestinians living in the enclave of fundamental rights, they said. "In pronouncing itself on the legality of the naval blockade, the Palmer Report does not recognize th...

Istanbul (CNN) -- Turkey's prime minister says the country will follow aid ships to Gaza in an effort to stop incidents like last year's raid by Israeli commandos that killed eight Turks and one Turkish-American. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Al Jazeera television network Thursday that "Turkish warships are primarily responsible to protect our ships that carry humanitarian aid to Gaza. From now on, we will not allow these ships to be subjected to attacks from Israel similar to what happened with the Freedom Flotilla. ... Israel will be answered appropriately." more

(pic: MEMO exclusive) A demonstration attended by farmers and fishermen from the Federation of Agricultural Workers and held under the auspices of the Union of Civil Organisations has marched on the UN headquarters in Gaza. The demonstrators sought to express their bitter condemnation of the UN’s recently released Palmer Report which sanctions and legitimises the siege on Gaza while providing a pretext for the Israeli Occupation to continue its five year blockade and closures. During this period, the people of Gaza have suffered serious shortages in the basic necessities of life as well as shortages in medical equipment and severe restrictions on the movement of people and goods across the borders. As such, this report has been seen as an affront to the massive international efforts to bring the siege to an including the international solidarity efforts, convoys, European parliamentary delegations that have come to Gaza and witnessed the destruction and the effects of the siege first...

LONDON — Here’s what the United Nations report on Israel’s raid last year on the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara had to say about the killing of a 19-year-old U.S. citizen on board: “At least one of those killed, Furkan Dogan, was shot at extremely close range. Mr. Dogan sustained wounds to the face, back of the skull, back and left leg. That suggests he may already have been lying wounded when the fatal shot was delivered, as suggested by witness accounts to that effect.” The four-member panel, led by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former prime minister of New Zealand, appears with these words to raise the possibility of an execution or something close. “At least one of those killed, Furkan Dogan, was shot at extremely close range. Mr. Dogan sustained wounds to the face, back of the skull, back and left leg. That suggests he may already have been lying wounded when the fatal shot was delivered, as suggested by witness accounts to that effect.” The four-member panel, led by Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a...

The Turkish navy will significantly strengthen its presence in the eastern Mediterranean Sea as one of the steps the Turkish government has decided to take following the release of the UN Palmer report on the 2010 Gaza flotilla, Turkish officials told the Hurriyet Daily News. "The eastern Mediterranean will no longer be a place where Israeli naval forces can freely exercise their bullying practices against civilian vessels," a Turkish official was quoted as saying. As part of the plan, the Turkish navy will increase its patrols in the eastern Mediterranean and pursue "a more aggressive strategy". According to the report, Turkish naval vessels will accompany civilian ships carrying aid to Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Another goal of the plan is to ensure free navigation in the region between Cyprus and Israel. The region includes areas where Israel and Cyprus cooperate in drilling for oil and gas. Additionally, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ...