Al Jazeera report of passengers recounting mid-sea horror
Andre Abu-Khalil, Al Jazeera cameraman
First they [the Israelis] tried to come by helicopter and tried to come down on the main deck. But the Turkish people were gathering on the rooftop and they managed to grab three of the soldiers, which led to a second helicopter to come and start shooting live bullets on the people.
People [on board] did not have any guns. All what they had were some wooden sticks which is normal.
I was on the Mavi Marmara [the lead ship of the flotilla].
I wasn't on the rooftop deck. I was on the first deck floor where the Israelis tried to climb by the ropes on the deck.
There were 20 Turkish resistance guys throwing tomatoes, anything that they managed to throw, on the Israelis.
Then one of these Turkish guys got a bullet just in the head. When the Turkish people saw that, they pulled him inside when the Israelis started firing on the deck.
[After the Israelis took over the ship] they kept us tied up, hands behind the back, for nine hours until we reached the Ashdod port and from there they took us for individual interrogation and then shipped us all to Be'er Sheva jail.
The organisers [of the flotilla] swapped the four Israelis kidnapped, or caught, by the people on the ship, and because they were beaten up, because it's kind of resistance from our side, we swapped the Israeli soldiers to [get] to treat our injured.
Hazem Farouq, Egyptian MP from the Muslim Brotherhood
Helicopters were flying above us. Four military ships and 10 Navy boats surrounded us. They rained us with sound and gas bombs as if we were in real war.
Four people died before my eyes and in my hands. We could not find any first aid material. What happened required a field hospital to treat the injured. I did not have the necessary material to treat their bleeding wounds.
When we tried to carry the injured, the Israeli soldiers refused to allow men to carry the wounded. They pointed their guns with laser light toward their heads. They asked women to carry the wounded. Some women could not.
The wounded were very hurt because they were not carried in the proper way through the stairs and narrow doors.
Farouq is a dentist who was on board Mavi Marmara, the lead ship of the flotilla. He spoke to Al Jazeera after arriving in Cairo.
Haneen Zubi, Palestinian member of the Knesset
We were expecting the Israeli army to stop us, to prevent us from entering but surely we didn't expect such a war against us.
It was 14 ships which approached us, nearly at 4.30 in the morning. Fourteen ships that I could count and one helicopter. Maybe more than 10 soldiers, I couldn't say exactly [how many] were getting out of the helicopter.
On the second floor of the ship there were just passengers who are journalists, a nurse and organisers of the flotilla who didn't have anything in their hands.
After 20 minutes, maybe 15 minutes, there were three dead bodies.
It ended at six, when a voice from the microphone said the ship was controlled by the Israelis, 'please enter the rooms'.
Norman Paech, former member of the German parliament
This was not an act of self-defence [by the Israeli army], but rather it was completely disproportionate - although we were counting on our ship being blocked and maybe checked.
This was a very serious offence, this was a war crime.
I personally saw two and a half wooden sticks which were used [by activists].
We had not prepared in any way to fight. We didn't even consider it.
No violence, no resistance - because we knew very well that we would have absolutely no chance against soldiers like this.
Massachusetts residents in Peace Flotilla
According to the Boston Globe Joseph Bangert of Brewster described his son, Fiachra Ó Luain, a 29-year-old Irish activist, as a "seed of peace."
Katherine E. Sheetz, 63, of Woods Hole, a long-time peace activist, was also in the flotilla.
Turkish-American Furkan Dogan was among the nine killed, shot five times including four times in the head when Israeli commandos stormed the Mavi Marmara.
Massachusetts-Israel commerce
The American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise reports that Israel ranks as Massachusetts' 24th trade partner, with $225,220,043 in Massachusetts exports going to the Middle Eastern country in 2008; and $26,843,976 in military contracts in 2006. At 4.3 percent of the total population, Massachusetts had 275,000 citizens of Jewish decent in 2001.
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