Israel intercepts & escorts Gaza flotilla flagship in ‘uneventful’ raid

Late Sunday night, Israeli forces intercepted the Gaza-bound Marianne, in what the Israeli Defense Forces said was a short operation, free of any casualties. The boat is currently en route to the Ashdod port.

Naval commandos from the Israeli force’s Shayetet 13 unit searched the boat after the interception. According to military sources, the ship is expected to dock in Ashdod within the next 12 to 24 hours, depending on weather and sea conditions.

After arriving in Ashdod, the passengers will be interrogated before being escorted to Ben-Gurion Airport and flown out of Israel.

The Swedish boat, which on Sunday afternoon was 150 nautical miles from the Gaza Coast, is carrying 20 activists, among them MK Basel Ghattas (Joint Arab List) and former Tunisian president Moncef Marzouki.

Haaretz reported that according to the army’s original plan, after boarding the ship, the soldiers were to hand out a letter issued by the Prime Minister’s Office, welcoming them to Israel and wondering why they sailed to Gaza and not Syria. “Perhaps you meant to sail somewhere else nearby – Syria, where Assad’s regime is massacring his people every day, with the support of the murderous Iranian regime.”

The Israeli government ordered the navy to “redirect” the vessel only after “exhausting all diplomatic channels,” according to the IDF. After the Marianne crew refused to change the course, the naval forces”visited and searched the vessel” and “reported that use of force was unnecessary, and that the process was uneventful.”

However, the organizers of the flotilla have reasons to believe that the engagement was not as uneventful and non-violent as the navy claims, and that some people on board “might be hurt.”

“We could not contact the boat or anyone on the boat in the last couple of hours before capture,” a representative of the Freedom Flotilla III media team told RT by phone. “We have no reason yet to believe that the capture was [as] uneventful as the IDF claimed, because the last time they said [that] in 2012, people were tasered and beaten with clubs.”

The coalition expected Tel-Aviv to make every effort to stop the third Freedom Flotilla, but still hoped that “at some point a more reasonable voice will prevail in the Israeli government.”

Meanwhile, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu has praised the navy personnel “for their determined and efficient” actions that allowed for the maintenance of the the blockade.

“This flotilla is nothing but a demonstration of hypocrisy and lies that is only assisting the Hamas terrorist organization and ignores all of the horrors in our region,” Netanyahu said. “We are not prepared to accept the entry of war materiel [in] to the terrorist organizations in Gaza as has been done by sea in the past.”

“Israel is the only democracy that defends itself in accordance with international law,” Netanyahu was cited as saying in an issued statement.

“Preventing entry by sea was done in accordance with international law and even received backing from a committee of the UN Secretary General,” the Israeli PM claimed.