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MEMO, September 23, 2010

A report by the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) has concluded that
Israel committed war crimes in its "clearly unlawful" assault on the
Turkish-flagged vessel the Mavi Marmara at the end of May. The report
was compiled by a team of four human rights experts who, according to
the Guardian newspaper, "condemned the treatment of the passengers and
crew as brutal and disproportionate". The Mavi Marmara was part of the
Freedom Flotilla seeking to break the Israeli-led blockade of Gaza
which, the report said, "is illegal because of the scale of the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza". The UNHRC report said, "There is clear
evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the
terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: wilful killing;
torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or
serious injury to body or health."

The attack by Israeli commandos took place while the ship was in
international waters and nine unarmed Turkish civilians were killed by
the soldiers; subsequent autopsies revealed that most had been shot at
close range, described by witnesses as "executions". The UNHRC team
believe that the evidence they amassed suggested that the assault was
"disproportionate" and "betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality".
This is in stark contrast to the example of some of the passengers who
were able to disarm some of the commandos and empty their guns of
ammunition when they were in a position to shoot the soldiers
themselves.

Predictably, the Israeli Foreign Ministry has called the report
"biased" and "one-sided" produced by a "politicised and extremist"
body. The UNHRC conclusions place the BBC's Panorama programme in a
particularly bad light. Panorama's "Death in the Med" episode in
August attracted hundreds of complaints of bias towards the Israeli
position; journalist Jane Corbin was given access to the Israeli
commando unit which carried out the attack. The Guardian claims that
the Israelis refused to cooperate with the UNHRC investigation.

Middle East Monitor