Ankara broke off relations with Jerusalem following a raid by Israeli commandos on a Gaza-bound ship trying to break the naval blockade of the Hamas-run enclave. Ten pro-Palestinian Turks who were part of Turkey’s Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH) were killed after they attacked the commandos.
The Mavi Marmara was part of a flotilla heading to the blocked Gaza Strip to deliver humanitarian aid.
It was the largest in a six-vessel convoy that tried to break the siege imposed by both Israel and Egypt that was designed to prevent Hamas and other groups from importing weapons and other goods that could help their military build-up.
The blockade was imposed in 2007 after Hamas took over the coastal enclave, making all goods that enter Gaza be imported under Israeli supervision through land crossings. Several ships had, over the years, attempted to break the blockade, but were stopped by the Israeli Navy and deported from Israel.
“We can’t let anyone in. If we let one in, we will lose control and if we did that, within three months, we would see Iranian ships in Gaza,” said Eliezer Marom, commander of the Israeli Navy from 2007–2011.
Marom was commander at the time of the Mavi Marmara and, now part of Habithonistim, a movement of Israeli defense officials who advocate for the country’s future security needs, he sat with the Magazine to tell his story.
“I spoke with the Turkish, Greek, and Italian navy chiefs and warned that there could be blood,” he said. “A military operation was our last resort. Violating our maritime borders violates our sovereignty.”
“Whoever wants to bring aid to Gaza, that’s OK. But it must be by land,” he said. “We won’t let anyone into Gaza by sea. A land and sea border is the same, even though there is no physical barrier.”
But those aboard the Mavi Marmara were different. “All of them were terrorists who belonged to IHH, and wanted to kill Israeli soldiers.”
“It was a different story and needed to be treated seriously,” noted Marom. “It was a civilian ship that decided that it wanted to provoke and challenge Israel.”
He explained that following diplomatic and legal measures taken by Israel to stop the flotilla, the IDF and other security bodies prepared a military operation.
The operation to stop the flotilla, he said, “was the largest Navy operation” with thousands of soldiers at sea, a thousand more in Ashdod and 30 maritime vessels.
“The operation was to take over all the ships simultaneously,” he said. “I wanted to do it at night, when it’s more comfortable to act. And we wanted it to be fast” he added, explaining that Israel knew that the ships had antennas to broadcast what was happening aboard.
The navy initially made contact with the ships in the flotilla late on Sunday evening, going ship to ship and ordering them to follow them to Ashdod Port or be boarded at dawn.
The boarding of the ships started at 2 a.m. the next morning and at 4 a.m. Israeli commandos descended on ropes from helicopters onto the Mavi Marmara and were immediately attacked with clubs, knives, and metal rods. Three soldiers were taken captive.
Troops opened fire after a protester, later identified as Ken O’Keefe, a former US marine aboard the Mavi Marmara, seized a gun from one of them. When it was all over, nine of the flotilla activists were killed and dozens more were wounded, including Israeli troops. Another activist died in hospital, four years later.
“All of them were terrorists who belonged to IHH, and wanted to kill Israeli soldiers,” said Marom, adding that “they planned to do it.”
According to the former navy chief, “we didn’t have enough intelligence. If we knew that they were IHH, we would have acted differently.”
And just like Israel wasn’t expecting such violence, neither was Turkey, said Dr. Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak, an expert on Turkey and Turkish history at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, and Tel Aviv University’s Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, “In hindsight, Turkey did not expect casualties, physical damage like during a street fight maybe, but in my opinion, they didn’t expect casualties and the incident forced them to downgrade relations.”
“None of the organizers want to take responsibility. After seeing 10 people killed, none of the organizers can do such an initiative because they can be accused of leading people to their death. These flotillas were departing from European countries; it’s not easy to take such an initiative because they have to face the consequences of the act.”
