Text featured alongside videos on PALESTINE SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN website:
Survivors of Israel's deadly assault on the Marvi Marmara gave their chilling, first-hand accounts of the raid to a packed rally in London on Wednesday (9 June). They described how they saw their friends shot in the head by commandoes in helicopters, cradled the dying in their arms, pleaded with Israeli soldiers to help the injured, and repeatedly saw their attempts to surrender met with more lethal violence. Some were used as human shields by the Israelis, while others struggled to prevent IDF dogs from biting the dead. The 400-strong audience also heard from a female survivor on one of the smaller ships in the flotilla, who described how the mostly female members of the boat were shot at close range with rubber bullets, assaulted with stun guns and forced to lie face-down on the deck in broken glass, with two women being forcibly hooded. Details of continued abuse, humiliation and inhuman treatment en route to, and in, Ber Sheeva prison were also recounted. What emerged was a picture, not just of planned, systematic brutality and deadly force, but also of casual and random cruelty by the Israelis against an unarmed, peaceful group of volunteers attempting to take aid to Gaza. Unbowed and undeterred, the brave survivors who spoke out on Wednesday urged everyone to step up their efforts to end the siege on Gaza, and join the struggle for justice for the Palestinian people. The rally, which was organised by PSC (Palestine Solidarity Campaign), also heard from Daniel Machover, of Palestinian Lawyers for Human Rights, on the illegality of the attack, and from George Galloway about the next convoy.