At least 16 people were killed in clashes this morning between the Israeli navy and a flotilla of ships trying to bring aid to the Gaza Strip, Israel's Channel Two television news said.

Earlier, activists said two people were killed and about 30 wounded today when Israeli forces boarded a Turkish ship that was part of the flotilla which Israel had vowed to stop.

Israeli public radio quoted an unnamed Arab journalist aboard a ship as saying the navy intercepted the activists and that shooting was heard.

At least 10 members of a flotilla of ships carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian aid supplies were killed in clashes, Israel Army Radio reported.

In a statement this morning, the Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said he was "gravely concerned" over reports emerging of the storming of the Turkish ship. He said the department was seeking to confirm the safety of the eight Irish nationals who sailed with the Turkish led flotilla.

"The reports of up to 15 people killed and 50 injured, if confirmed, would constitute a totally unacceptable response by the Israeli military to what was a humanitarian mission attempting to deliver much needed supplies to the people of Gaza."

Irish activists aboard the 1,200-ton cargo ship Rachel Corrie , named after an American who was crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, had set sail from Dundalk at the weekend to join the convoy.

"Two people have been killed on board the Turkish boat and 30 or more were wounded," said Mary Hughes Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Free Gaza Movement, which was behind the convoy. "As far as we know IDF (Israeli military) commandos descended on the boat from helicopters and took it over."

An Israeli religious medical service said seven people had been admitted to hospital in Haifa, Israel's main naval base, one of them in a serious condition.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry called the raid "inhuman" and said it "may cause damage to our relations that will be impossible to repair," according to the statement e-mailed by the ministry in Ankara today.

The European Union today called for an enquiry into deaths aboard Gaza aid ships and urged Israel to allow the free flow of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip.

"High Representative Catherine Ashton expresses her deep regret at the news of loss of life and violence and extends her sympathies to families of the dead and wounded," said a spokesperson for Ms Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief.

"On behalf of the European Union she demands a full enquiry about the circumstances in which this happened. . . . She calls for an immediate, sustained and unconditional opening of the crossing for the flow of humanitarian aid, commercial goods and persons to and from Gaza."

The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, described the killings as "a massacre".

Israeli officials said overnight the navy told the activists by radio to turn back towards Cyprus or head for the Israeli port of Ashdod to unload the 10,000 tonnes of aid, which Israel would then transfer to the Palestinians in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

The convoy set off in international waters off Cyprus on Sunday in defiance of an Israeli-led blockade of Gaza.

The flotilla was organised by pro-Palestinian groups and a Turkish human rights organisation. Turkey had urged Israel to allow it safe passage and said the 10,000 tonnes of aid the convoy was carrying was humanitarian.

Israel had said it would prevent the convoy from reaching the Gaza Strip, which is run by the Islamist Hamas group.

Israel and Egypt tightened a blockade on Gaza after Hamas took over the territory in 2007. Israel launched a devastating military offensive in Gaza in December 2008 with the aim of halting daily rocket fire towards its cities.

Most of the 1.5 million Palestinians living in Gaza rely on aid, blaming Israel for imposing restrictions on the amount and type of goods it allows into the territory.

The United Nations and Western powers have urged Israel to ease its restrictions to prevent a humanitarian crisis. They have been urging Israel to let in concrete and steel to allow for post-war reconstruction.

Israel denies there is a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, saying food, medicine and medical equipment are allowed in regularly. It says the restrictions are necessary to prevent weapons and materials that could be used to make them from reaching Hamas.

We await the sickening support from the Israeli backers on here for this.

The IDF once again are flexing their muscles against unarmed people who can't fight back. What heroes.

scum.

Nothing surprises me with that shower of cunts.

They where attacked they fought back, end off.

You saying they didnt? Though the jew boys have given those cunts a life line, with all the left winged wishy washy fuckers creaming themselves at the thought of the evil Israelis.

Shouldn't have been boarding the boat in the 1st place.

Wouldnt be so sure of that, heres some international law for you.

i'd say yourbest not repsonding to sin......i believe it is called being a wum....how any country whatsoever can consider themselves as allies to irsrael is beyond me....you don't know how angry i am.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB-Mk4bFz-U...layer_embedded#

They wanted to make sure there was no weapons on the boat, hardly wrong to want to do that. There where enough warnings given before they boarded, they even offered the boats the go to Egypt who would pass the aid on to Gazza, lets see what they find on that boat.

I've no love for either of these nations but it's fucking ridiculous that an attack in international waters toward a threatless aid group can be tolerated by anyone.

How come the other boats didnt have trouble? Only one boat gave a violent reaction to a lawful boarding, youre being took in by the leftish press, young man.

I strongly back Israel on a lot of their missions but this one does seem rather botched.

Do have to laugh at the blind support from some for anybody-but-Israel.

I'm not influenced by left or right wing press. I go on the facts and Isreal attacked a boat possing no threat in international waters.

I can see that it could be treated as suspect and Isreal could maintain a right to boarding a providing a peaceful search but we all know Isreal had no intentions of doing this.

Israel did not attack a boat, they boarded a boat under the 1994 San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, they where attacked when they boarded the boat and defended themselves. If they had of wanted to just attack the boat, they would have sunk the fucking thing, not board it.

They can't be trusted to pass the aid on.

No they wouldn't have because that would make it too obvious, and they couldn't even try cover that one up.

Few limpit minesin the right place, claim it was explosioves on the boat being carried by the aid worker, peice of piss for the likes of Mossad.

You can't cover up a missile attack, there is sattilites around our planet that would prove it.

However you can cover up a defense. I wouldn't trust any of those cunts as far as I could throw them to pass on supplies to a country they hate. Same would go if it was the other way round.

Theres other ways to blow up a boat barr a missile, look at the French and Rainbow Warrior.
The issue is not the passing of the supplies, the issue is that they wanted to secure their people by checking out what was on that boat, the IHH are closely linked to Hamas, and are a member of the Union of the Good, which supports suicide bombings. Lovely trusting peaceful people Im sure you will agree.

How can you even start to defend this sin, when even the americans (one of israels biggest allies) has come out and said the methods used by these cunts needs to be changed. They are trying to put a seige around a country that doesn't even belong to them, how this has been justified for so long is fucking mayhem.

There was never a threat from these boats and the scum knew fine rightly they just wanted to stop as much goods going to gaza as possible.

There will be something done about this sooner rather than later and it will be interesting how this irish ship sailing in later tonight gets on, if they even try attacking this one they will be wiped from anyones allie book.


FREE GAZA

The threat was what could have been in the cargo, which they wanted to search, surely that is to be expected in the real world where people care about their nations safety. Scratch the surface and we see a differnce to what is said to be happening, people are letting themselves being used a pawns in a dangerious game by the likes of the radical IHH.
As for Turkeys double standards in all this, what about the Kurds and their treatment by the Turks??

Israel are far from innocents in what goes on in the middle east.

But CR, DB S4L and all you other guys, I sincerely hope you'll be starting a 'Hamas Cunts' topic the next time they lob a rocket in the direction of Telaviv.

But hey I guess that'll be just dandy in your book. No doubt it'll be the action of freedom fighters.

Nail on head Nimmy. Hamas and the likes like to play hard ball, until the fire is turned on them and then they become poor wee victims, now where does that remind you of?
The IHH wanted a reaction they got one and are now rolling in the glory of victim porn, that the reaction has made. As far as Im concerned they made a trap for the Israelis, using guiable people as a pawns in a game that ended in blood being spilt, again I wil ask why was this the only ship that gave a violent reaction to being boarded? Surely if the Israelis where out looking for blood they wouldve used extreme violence on all the vessels. More to it that then the naked eye can see and weve already got a nearly as many myths about it than we have about Bloody Sunday.

Fuck off you dickhead, could trust the scum like yourself to give 100% backing to Israel



Interesting legal opinion in the Guardian from a Research Fellow in University of Lancaster School of Law and a former British Ambassador.

"A word on the legal position, which is very plain. To attack a foreign flagged vessel in international waters is illegal. It is not piracy, as the Israeli vessels carried a military commission. It is rather an act of illegal warfare.

Because the incident took place on the high seas does not mean however that international law is the only applicable law. The Law of the Sea is quite plain that, when an incident takes place on a ship on the high seas (outside anybody's territorial waters) the applicable law is that of the flag state of the ship on which the incident occurred. In legal terms, the Turkish ship was Turkish territory.

There are therefore two clear legal possibilities.

Possibility one is that the Israeli commandos were acting on behalf of the government of Israel in killing the activists on the ships. In that case Israel is in a position of war with Turkey, and the act falls under international jurisdiction as a war crime.

Possibility two is that, if the killings were not authorised Israeli military action, they were acts of murder under Turkish jurisdiction. If Israel does not consider itself in a position of war with Turkey, then it must hand over the commandos involved for trial in Turkey under Turkish law.

In brief, if Israel and Turkey are not at war, then it is Turkish law which is applicable to what happened on the ship. It is for Turkey, not Israel, to carry out any inquiry or investigation into events and to initiate any prosecutions. Israel is obliged to hand over indicted personnel for prosecution."

Think I'll go with him rather then yourself



Hes a clown alright, but its good to show him up regardless



At least not all the unionists here are performing their best ostrich impressions



What relevance is any of that to the IDF strafing a humanitarian aid convoy in the dead of night in international waters?

This convoy was verified by third parties such as the red cross to be carrying food and medicine ffs.

The IDF made a bloody point last night that ANY attempt to lift the population of Gaza out of semi starvation would be met with fire.

"Rather botched" is that all you can come up with?





So one again the only people in the world who are not allowed fight back are whoever Isreal is picking a row with on any given day. We are dealing here with the same ideaology as South Africa apartheid, the O6 orange statelet so its no wonder that the bigots on here feel the need to love Israel and back those who have ironically turned into the nazi's

Hey CR re-read the seas laws I posted up......The Isralis have banned certain things from entering the country as they claim it aids Hamas to attack their country, surely being allowed a wee look on the ship to make sure theres nowt that will endanger their country is a bad thing. FFS they landed with paint ball guns incase they where attacked and as a use of crowd control if needed, it was only after their safety was at risk, did they use guns,.
But any how back on the the Turks and Kurds, wanna make a comment about that, seeing as the Turks seem to care so much about human rights?

Kind of ironic you tarnish the name of people who suffered genocide at the hands of the the very name you give them. Especially given the well documented Nazi IRA connection.

and the outcry from SF/IRA when some one lobbed Sean Russels head off, would suggets they still pride themselves on that connection.
Not to mention the role palyed by those nazi Ulster emn in bringing the nazis down, Winnie said that in the darkest days there was a light that shone all over Europe, that light was Ulster, whilst those lovely free sore arsed people down south where saying sorry to the german people for the loss of that lovely man mr hitler.


Awaits post in the vien of Russel was only contacting our enemy's, enemy.................. (yawn)

Thats not the laws of sea, please keep up. But sure when did Israel follow the rules? The IDF were illegally trespassing on a Turkish boat and the owners/passangers on the ship were well within their legal rights to defend their ship from the assault thats the starting point work from there....




Hence why I said ironically those who have turned into nazi's here. Oh fuck are you going to try and get out of it with that one, go learn up a bit on Sean Russell first before shouting claims you can't back up cheers



Republicans were not the ones who had links to facists, national front, combat 18, turfing out Polish and Romanian families of their homes. Why no outrage over the Brits doing deals with the Nazis so? Englands difficullty.....

They never will either because they know everyone is afraid to stop them. They even have the Brits and Americans licking their arse because they're scared shitless of Israel.

The IRA helped refuel German U-Boats. FACT!

Is that like the last time I destroyed you on the life of Russel and man who didnt stand by his earlier convictions of what he did in Spain? Englands difficulty, try telling telling to poor bastards who had 5 years of nazi jackboots on their thoarts. Just imagine what the world would have beenj like if the Ra had of got their way and the nazis had of won the war, would it have been worth it, would it have achieved the aims set out in the declaration of independence?

Yep, all it takes is for Israel to play on the old anti semitic shite and they think they have a free reign. We all know why the Irish unionists here find reason to support the Israelis though as they feel the need to support land robbers who think its their divine right to get what they want



Englands difficulty is Irelands opportunity, Irish patriots had links with Germans far before this time

Ignore all points made to you again

This is painful, you had you're arse slapped as usual

Yourself and Billy meanwhile support apartheit regiemes

What points did I miss, missed nothing of importance out? but then I remember Im dealing with a tunnel visoned eejet....

Think you mean the world's difficulty against a ethnic cleansing regime is irelands opportunity? It is Ireland's shame alright.

The poor lad canna see the wood for the trees

Click

yhup its been a myth, the u-boats though sheletered in secluded coves on the west coast (Galway, Mayo, Sligo).

U boats did refuel in donegal. Heard plenty of stories.

So that makes it a fact now does it?

No but neither does a link to a website.

Never said it did. But you claimed it as a "FACT" in one post, then gave your reason as you've "heard plenty of stories" in another post. Sure a lot of us have heard plenty of different stories about it, most are a load of bollox though.

I see it as a FACT. Do you deny the existence of IRA Nazi collaboration?

You can't just see something as a fact, its either a proven fact or its not. Would make sense for them to help each other in some way because they both had a common enemy, whether they did or not I don't know and couldn't really care to be honest.

Read the title and no more. Makes me laugh that Irish nationalists try to draw a comparison between themselves and the Palestinians and go off on one about it. Fuck off you pathetic, sad, dying bastards.

Supporting the Israeli defence forces against Palestinian, militant, murdering, suicide bombing, Islamic terrorists.

Fuckin' hell can't even be arsed quoting any of this.

Opinion: Wish both the wanker governments would stop bombing each other and actually have a civilized debate about this problem they have. I'm sick of hearing about them. Hamas are a bunch of cunts, and the Isreali government are not innocent either.

Nail on the head.

Don't 'support' either side, though I feel desperately sorry for the civilians of both countries. The predictable taking sides along unionist/nationalist lines and failing to see both sides to the story is embarrassing.

That's who I do support. The people of these nations. The innocent ones having their homes, business', schools, places of work and so on blown out of the ground due to religious bitter shite which makes both governments look like a shower of wee children.

When you look at the Children of Palestine programme broadcast on C4 a while back, it makes you wonder how these wanker governments can do this.