Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, who reported from the ship as the raid began, was also sent to Turkey by Israel after being released by the Israelis.
Elshayyal said that he witnessed some of the killings, and confirmed that at least “one person was shot through the top of the head from [the helicopter] above”.
Our producer was on the top deck when the ship was attacked and said that within a few minutes of seeing the Israeli helicopters, there were shots being fired from above.
“The first shots [coming from Israeli boats at sea] were tear gas, sounds grenades and rubber coated steel bullets,” Elshayyal said.
“Live shots came five minutes after that. There was definetly live fire from the air and from the sea as well.”
He confirmed that some passengers took apart some of the ship’s railing bars to defend themselves as they saw the Israeli soldiers approaching.
“After the shooting and the first deaths, people put up white flags and signs in English and Hebrew,” he said.
“An Israeli [on the ship] asked the soldiers to take away the injured, but they did not, and the injured died on the ship.”
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Dorgan died of “gunshot wounds,” but he declined to confirm Turkish media reports that he was shot four times in the head and once in the chest at close range.
Furkan Dogan
(Washington Post) –One of the nine activists killed by Israeli commandos aboard a Gaza-bound aid flotilla was a teenager who held U.S. citizenship, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday.
The disclosure further complicates the fallout from the incident, as the death of an American overseas can prompt a U.S. government investigation. Until now, the Obama administration has backed Israel’s assertion that it can conduct its own inquiry.
Clinton identified the victim as Furkan Dorgan, 19. He was born in Troy, N.Y., while his father, Ahmet Dorgan, was pursuing an MBA at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The elder Dorgan received the degree in 1992, according to his Web site at Erciyes University in Kayseri, Turkey.
Furkan Dorgan apparently returned to Turkey at age 2 and held dual citizenship. Turkish media reports said he attended Kayseri science high school and had been accepted to a university for the fall. He wanted to be a doctor.
“Our ambassador to Turkey, Ambassador Jim Jeffrey, has been in contact with the family,” Clinton told reporters. “We’ve offered not only our heartfelt condolences but any kind of consular assistance that the family might need at this time.”
She said that another U.S. citizen was injured on one of the ships and that a third — later identified as Emily Henochowicz, 21, of Potomac — was hurt during a subsequent protest of the incident. According to Israeli media reports, Henochowicz lost an eye after being hit by an Israeli tear-gas canister.
“We have made no decisions at this point on any additional specific actions that our government should take with respect to our own citizens,” Clinton added, but she renewed her call for “a prompt, impartial, credible and transparent investigation that conforms to international standards.”
Ahmet Dorgan, an accounting professor, told the state-run Anatolia news agency that he had identified his son at a morgue and that he had been shot in the forehead. But he did not express sadness. “I feel my son has been blessed with heaven,” he said. “I am hoping to be a father worthy of my son.”
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Dorgan died of “gunshot wounds,” but he declined to confirm Turkish media reports that he was shot four times in the head and once in the chest at close range.
Israeli officials had no comment on Dorgan’s death, saying they did not make the identification and did not examine the bodies before turning them over to Turkish officials.
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report.
By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, June 4, 2010
Source: The Washington Post
More on Israel:
– President Abdullah Gul: Turkey will ‘never forgive’ Israel (Al Jazeera)
– American teenager among those killed in Israeli raid of aid flotilla; Israeli soldiers accused of refusing to treat the injured, letting them die (Washington Post/Al Jazeera)
– Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky: Gaza flotilla raid ’so stupid it’s stupefying’ (The Raw Story)
– Israeli soldiers murder at least 10 civilians on boat carrying aid to Gaza (Los Angeles Times)
– Israel stations nuclear missile submarines off Iran (Times)
– Gaza Aid Flotilla Delayed After Mystery Faults Hit Two Boats (Independent)
– Israeli Commandos Ordered To Stop Gaza Aid Ships (Times)
– Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons (Guardian)
– Report: Israel threatens to ‘return Syria back to the Stone Age’ (Ynet)
– Discharged IDF Soldiers Sue For Millions Over Anthrax Vaccine Experiment (YNet News)
– The US Military now KNOWS Mossad carried out 9/11 Attacks:
Dr. Alan Sabrosky, former director of studies at the US Army War College says that the military brass now know that Israel “and those traitors within our nation” committed the 911 attack.
……”I have had long conversations over the last two weeks with contacts at the Army War College and the headquarters, Marine Corps and I’ve made it absolutely clear in both cases that it is 100% certain that 9/11 was a Mossad operation.” Period.
– New FBI Files Alleging AIPAC Theft of Government Property and Israeli Espionage Released (PRNewswire)
– Israel Threatening To Use Nuclear Weapons On Iran! (FOX NEWS)
– Ex-Mossad Agent Ostrovsky: The ‘Anti-Semite’ Label
– Former Israeli Minister: ‘It’s a Trick, We Always Use It.’ (calling people ‘anti-Semitic’)
– UK Jewish MP: Israel acting like Nazis in Gaza
– Palestinian children are stoned while walking to school (Christian Peacemaker Teams)
– Israel admits organ harvesting from Palestinians, and others, without consent (Guardian)
– UN assembly votes for probes of Gaza war crimes charges (Reuters)
– U.N. rights envoy: Israeli war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law in Gaza (Reuters)
– U.S. shipped 989 munitions containers to Israel week before Gaza invasion (Australien Herald)
– Paul Craig Roberts: Israel and the Goldstone Report – War Criminals Are Becoming Arbiters of the Law (CounterPunch)
– Israel’s war crimes in Gaza (Independent)
– Amnesty International: Gaza white phosphorus shells were US made (Times)
– Did Israeli soldiers kill unarmed civilians? (Toronto Star):
‘The most moral army in the world’ killed civilians without cause
– Israeli soldiers report abuses in Gaza (Los Angeles Times)
– Tony Benn to BBC: If you won’t broadcast the Gaza appeal then I will myself (BBC)
– Israel admits troops may have used phosphorus shells in Gaza (Guardian)
– Outcry over Israel’s reported use of phosphorus in Gaza (IHT)
– Israel accused of executing parents in front of children in Gaza (Telegraph)
– Gaza: ‘I watched an Israeli soldier shoot dead my two little girls’ (Independent)
– Israel ‘admits’ using white phosphorus munitions (Times)
– Gaza building apparently hit by phosphorus: UN (Vancouver Sun)
– Israeli use of white phosphorus ‘undeniable’: Amnesty International (The Age)
– Israel used phosphorus in heavily populated areas, doctors charge (Kansas City Star)
– Israeli army investigates use of white phosphorous in Gaza (Guardian)
– Israel shelled UK war graves in Gaza (Telegraph)
– Israel ‘will resume bombing’ of Gaza if Hamas reopens tunnels (Telegraph)
– Gideon Levy / Gaza war ended in utter failure for Israel (Ha’aretz)
– False Flag: The Attack on the USS Liberty
– Dead In The Water – The Sinking of the USS Liberty (BBC)
Israel calls this self-defense:
(Click on image to enlarge.)
I guess Hitler would have called it self-defense too!
Sounded like he came from the mid-west.