Turkey expels Israeli ambassador over flotilla blockade
Turkey has said it is expelling top-level Israeli diplomats in protest at the Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound ship that killed nine Turks. The UN report found the raid legal but excessive.
The Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said: “Turkey-Israel diplomatic relations have been reduced to a second secretary level. All personnel above the second secretary level will return to their countries by Wednesday at the latest.”
Israel’s ambassador Gabby Levy was currently in Israel and cancelled plans to return to Turkey on Thursday.
UN report
A long-awaited UN report on the raid declared that Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip was legal, but that the Jewish state used unreasonable force.
The report said Israeli commandos faced “organised and violent resistance from a group of passengers” in the incident last year.
Thirty-seven Britons were on board the ship when it was raided – none was seriously injured.
In criticism of Israel, the report said the amount of force used by the Israelis on board the Mavi Marmara, the largest in a flotilla of six ships that the crew said were delivering aid to Palestinians in Gaza, was “excessive and unreasonable”.
‘Shot from above’
Filmmaker Osama Qashoo, from the Free Gaza Movement, was on the ship that was raided. He told Channel 4 that he saw people shot from above while they filming the events or trying to defend the ship with water cannons.
“My friend was shot right between the eyes while filming a helicopter. Most of the injuries were in the upper bodies at close range.”
But he rejected the panel’s comments on the Gaza blockade, saying they have no authority to comment.
“They have no mandate to comment on the blockade in Gaza. The important thing to note is that this report notes that Israel was shooting from above.
“It was completely illegal.”
Disagreements amongst panel
In comments that considerably weakened the force of the report, the Israeli and Turkish members of the four-man panel that wrote it said they disagreed with key findings. The Turkish panellist disassociated himself from some conclusions.
Israel calls its Gaza blockade a precaution against arms reaching Hamas and other Palestinian groups by sea. Palestinians and their supporters say the blockade is illegal collective punishment, a view some UN officials have echoed.
The report’s release was delayed repeatedly to allow talks between Israel and Turkey, whose relations were badly affected by the incident on 31 May last year.
The report was originally expected to be completed in February. But Turkey and Israel were never able to agree on what happened and what the conclusions of the report should be, diplomats and UN officials said. As a result, one UN official said, the report is not a “consensus document”.