Tuesday, July 13, 2010
The IDF has issued its report on the actions it took to stop the last Gaza Flotilla: IDF probe: Army didn't have 'Plan B'
Maj.-Gen Eiland gives 100-page report on 'Mavi Marmara' incident.
A series of operational and intelligence mistakes led to the botched raid in late May aboard the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship that was trying to break the blockade on the Gaza Strip, according to an internal military probe.
The report was released for publication on Monday, as a Libyan-backed vessel was en route to the Gaza Strip, in another effort to break the blockade imposed by Israel. The vessel was expected to reach Israel's territorial waters by Tuesday or Wednesday...
The media has been spinning the results hard to try to show wrongdoing on the Israeli's part, but what it really sounds like is a rather typical military style investigation on how things could have been done better and should be done better next time -- typical of any efficient organization. Tellingly, no one is condemned in the report.
It does contain this bit of explosive news, however, something that puts to rest what had only been circling as speculation previously, and really ought to be the headline:
'Slug dislodged from soldier's knee didn't come from Navy gun'
Eiland's probe also found that shots were initially fired at the boarding commandos from weapons that the passengers had brought with them. The slug that was dislodged from the knee of one of the soldiers was of a different caliber than that used by the navy.
He also detailed the events that led to the seizing of three commandos, who were thrown from the upper to the lower deck and were only recovered about 40 minutes later, after they were spotted standing wounded on the ship's bow and surrounded by a number of activists.
Other commandos opened fire from above and scared off the passengers, enabling two of the wounded to jump into the water. The third, who was severely wounded, was then rescued by commandos who jumped down to the bow from the upper deck.
According to Eiland, the navy did not have technology that would have enabled it to stop the ship ahead of the operation without putting soldiers on board its upper deck to take control of the bridge.
"Such an option did not exist," Eiland concluded in his report...
Previously there was some confusion as to whether the only shots fired by the passengers had come from sidearms they seized from the commandos themselves. That did happen, but now it is known that the passengers had their weapons as well. It is not known how many, as they could easily have been tossed overboard.
