Israeli Commando Raid Questions

I have been waiting for the IDF IR footage of the raid to be released. You can find a copy here are the bottom of the page.

news.yahoo.com...

It does indeed show the Commandos getting whacked with sticks and stuff. The IR footage does not show the "Before" events. You pick up the action in mid-stride.

From a tactical standpoint the whole operation makes little sense to me and this is where I need some explanation. I am military but seizing ships is not my specialty. What on earth was the objective of the raid?

1. Why would you fast rope in a handful of Operators onto a vessel after you fired at it from another boat which resulted in nothing more than predisposing a potential benign environment to one of hostility?

2. There seemed to be no obvious objective to the ship-to-ship fire such as snipers eliminating threats to the assault element.

3. If they were concerned about the potential of hostile "armed terrorists", why go on board when there were still plenty of active threats which you could stand off and eliminate?

4. The Operators seemed genuinely surprised Turks (not the most passive folks you ever met) hit them with whatever was at hand. Unfortunately things went south pretty quickly after that.

I know there is this stigma of the Israelis being the best at these tasks but unless something went very wrong or this was poorly/rapidly planned it is hard to make heads or tails of it. It reminds me of that Mossad assassination in Dubai. That sure seemed amateurish to anyone who watched the video.

www.dailymail.co.uk...

Great post, I never thought of many of those questions but would also like to hear some thoughts on this whole thing. I saw the video of the Commandos roping down too, and it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense to do that after firing on the boat.

Its like throwing rocks at a hornets nest and then jumping into it?

I am not defending the Israelis by saying that they should have not been attacked, just also curious why they would have went by it this way.

Some good questions. I wish I had the answers. The "answers" from the Israeli government don't cut it for me.

And it did seem strange in how that assassination was carried out. Talk about leaving a trail of crumbs.

And it gets me that Israel said that the aid supplies could have just been given to them and they (Israel) would hand it out. Yeah right.

They don't even allow coffee, chocolate, farm animals, etc. to Gaza. (but they Do allow feed for the animals they Don't allow )

Originally posted by ABNARTY
From a tactical standpoint the whole operation makes little sense to me and this is where I need some explanation. I am military but seizing ships is not my specialty. What on earth was the objective of the raid?

It reminds me of that Mossad assassination in Dubai. That sure seemed amateurish to anyone who watched the video.

Perhaps it was an assassination OP? There are now reports coming in from multinational witnesses of head shot kills. And also reports that the Commandos seemed to be looking for select individuals.

It seems to me like the "illicit cargo" that Israel was looking for was looking for had less to do with "missiles" and more to do with arresting and/or eliminating "enemy" personnel. .

[edit on 6/1/2010 by clay2 baraka]

reply to post by clay2 baraka


I was thinking about this. The blockade is supposed to stop the flow of arms to Hamas. The flotilla was trying to break through the blockade to Gaza with humanitarian aid. The Israelis ostensibly were raiding the convoy to seize possible weapon deliveries. There were six ships in the convoy. Two were passenger ships and four were cargo ships (I could be wrong on the count). Yet they raid the passenger ship not one of the cargo ships where one might logically assume a large, worth while cache of weapons might be.

I would like to find some verification of those head shots because the story makes more sense that way.

I really don't get it either. This whole thing seems like a set up for something bigger to me. This so called freedom flotilla was no secret, there was news coverage before they ever left their home port. Obviously the Israelis knew what was coming from the perspective of number and size of ships.

You would think if they had planned to raid these ships, they would have been prepared for some resistance and would have had the numbers and appropriate crowd control non-lethal weapons to deal with the situation.

Also, you had to know that there was going to be a confrontation. This flotilla had no intention of actually making it to Gaza. If they did, they would have made a much more discrete run rather than telling the whole world that they were going to make a run basically daring Israel to try to stop them. The Israeli Navy fell right into the trap by using deadly force, and by planning a raid which ultimatley required them to use deadly force because the whole operation was completely botched and they put Israeli soldiers into harms way without real planning.

I am usually a big Israel supporter, but this whole thing really has me scratching my head.

reply to post by ABNARTY


They raided and ultimatley seized all the ships. Even though a ship is primarily a passenger ship does not mean it cannot be carrying illegal cargo.

Originally posted by ABNARTY
reply to post by clay2 baraka

 

I was thinking about this. The blockade is supposed to stop the flow of arms to Hamas. The flotilla was trying to break through the blockade to Gaza with humanitarian aid. The Israelis ostensibly were raiding the convoy to seize possible weapon deliveries. There were six ships in the convoy. Two were passenger ships and four were cargo ships (I could be wrong on the count). Yet they raid the passenger ship not one of the cargo ships where one might logically assume a large, worth while cache of weapons might be.

I would like to find some verification of those head shots because the story makes more sense that way.

While researching more first hand accounts of detainee killings I came across this:

urkish sources and media revealed a document which shows that a death list had been prepared in advance by the Israelis, showing names and pictures of people on board of the ships to be murdered, who, according to Israel, were “involved in the International humanitarian aid for Gaza”. According to the Turkish sources, hundreds of Israeli soldiers stormed the blue Turkish ship “Marmara” flotilla and they had copies of the death list. The list included the names of civilians on the fleet who should be killed”. The document was apparently recovered after one of the Israeli soldiers lost it during the piracy act.

www.doomdaily.com...

I hope to god it's merely fabricated propaganda. .

reply to post by finemanm


True. However, the Israelis seem most bothered by the rockets launched at them. This is a much larger object than a crate of AK-47s. Something you may need a ship specifically designed to carry large things.

Indeed all the ships were seized eventually but the order in which it happened makes no sense from a tactical stand point.

On another note, I came across the video below showing Israelis celebrating the attack on the aid convoy in front of the Turkish embassy in Tel Aviv. Now I realize there are Israelis who condemn the action but there seems to be a dearth of video footage showing that.

www.liveleak.com...

reply to post by clay2 baraka


Good find. I can think of only one thing that list could be or hope it could be and it counters one of my earlier assumptions about the raid being poorly/too rapidly planned.

That list of names/faces/other data of the passengers (I hope) was to help the Operators determine who should be on the ship (from the published manifest) from some non-peace activists who might have snuck aboard with nefarious intent.

Unfortunately, that same list could have been used to identify HVT to capture or eliminate. Simply the existence of that list can not determine how the Operators would have used it.

en.wikipedia.org...

This doesn't make sense to me either. There's something more to the story than we are being told.

I guess my main question is why now? There have been other aid shipments and they didn't end this way.

Egypt's role is also confusing to me. Are they just passive participants in the blockade? Don't they have a say so in what Israel does if it's a joint effort?

reply to post by ABNARTY


So what if Israelis were demonstrating in front of the Turkish Embassy? Israelis feel that the Turkish government turned a blind eye and tacitly approved a plan by a group of people to intentionally challenge Israel's right to protect its sovergn waters by refusing to prevent a convoy from breaking an embargo.

The US Navy staired down the Soviet fleet in the 60's over an embargo.

reply to post by Daughter2


I believe they have different zones they maintain on the blockade. I was reading where Egypt plans on allowing the next aid convoy in through their section.

Indeed there have been numerous convoys before and some were let through. This whole thing on both sides seems staged or orchestrated but far from what would normally happen if TV cameras were not around.

Originally posted by ABNARTY
reply to post by clay2 baraka

 

Good find. I can think of only one thing that list could be or hope it could be and it counters one of my earlier assumptions about the raid being poorly/too rapidly planned.

That list of names/faces/other data of the passengers (I hope) was to help the Operators determine who should be on the ship (from the published manifest) from some non-peace activists who might have snuck aboard with nefarious intent.

Unfortunately, that same list could have been used to identify HVT to capture or eliminate. Simply the existence of that list can not determine how the Operators would have used it.

en.wikipedia.org...

I am still looking for credible accounts of detainee assassinations but it would make sense that Israel would not release from custody, any eye-witnesses to killings if that is what happened.

The "Assassination List" is stated by Turkish "sources" as stating that those on the list "are to be killed." Whether that is an assumption on the part of those that recovered the document, or something actually written on paper is unclear as the photo released is too small to be legible assuming it is not forged. .

We will just have to see if this story (rumor)? develops. .

It would explain many inconsistencies in the event, however.

[edit on 6/1/2010 by clay2 baraka]

reply to post by finemanm


I will not go into that larger argument. The link was to merely point out there seems to be a lot of media attention focusing on the emotions of underlying but separate issues. The whole convoy/raid was designed to solicit just that and seems successful. If more effort were focused on the facts of the incident, we might get somewhere.