Thursday, September 30, 2010

'Israel brutally seized Gaza ship'

Wed Sep 29, 2010 8:44PM

Activists aboard the latest boat trying to break the crippling Israeli blockade of Gaza say Israeli troops seized their vessel violently and treated them brutally.


Yonatan Shapira, a former Israeli Air Force pilot, said Israeli soldiers hit him with a stun gun while he was passively resisting arrest.


"They didn't kill us like they killed other Palestinians and Muslims, but they were very brutal. I got shot with a taser shock gun ... and was brutally treated just like my brother Itamar," Shapira, a member of the Combatants for Peace group, told Reuters on Wednesday.

Vish Vishvanath, a British journalist, also complained about the harsh treatment of Israeli soldiers, saying he was "ambushed" and "almost strip searched" by Israeli commandos and that all his equipment were confiscated.

Israeli military, which had claimed that the Irene was seized peacefully on Tuesday, has yet to comment on the activists' accounts.

Israeli warships surrounded the aid vessel, carrying eight Jewish activists and two British journalists nearly 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the Gaza coast, forcefully diverting it to the Israeli port of Ashdod.

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