Israel Flotilla Raid

Guardian blog - being updated regularly.
An excerpt from it thus far:

UN calls for inquiry into Israel's assault on Gaza flotilla
• Free Gaza Movement says it will send two more ships
• Egypt opens border crossing with Gaza

2.31pm:

Some of the people onboard the MV Rachel Corrie ship, which was part of the Freedom Flotilla but was not seized by Israeli troops after falling behind others in the fleet, have been named.

Gaza campaigner Ali Abunimah has named 11 of the passengers on his blog:

• Mairead Maguire, the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, from Belfast, Ireland

• Denis Halliday, Manhattan, NYC and Connemara, Ireland.

• Matthias Chang Wen Chieh, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

• MP Mohd Nizar bin Zakaria, a member of the Malaysian Parliament.

• Shamsul Akmar bin Musa Kamal 46, Selangor, Malaysia

• Mr. Shamsul Akmar bin Musa Kamal, Malaysian journalist

• Mohd Nizar bin Zakaria 41 , Perak, Malaysia

• Abdul Halim Bin Mohamed 29 , Selangor, Malaysia

• Abdul Halim, broadcast journalist for news and current affairs Malaysia TV3

• Mohd Jufri Bin Mohd Judin 33, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

• Mohd Jufri, cameraman for news and current affairs Malaysia TV3.

While the Press Association is reporting that there are five Irish people in total aboard the MV Rachel Corrie, also including Fiona Thompson, a film-maker from Dundalk.

The ship will still head for Gaza according to the Free Gaza Movement.

"We are an initiative to break Israel's blockade of 1.5 million people in Gaza. Our mission has not changed and this is not going to be the last flotilla," Free Gaza Movement activist Greta Berlin, based in Cyprus, told Reuters.

However an unnamed Israeli marine lieutenant told Israel's Army Radio today his unit was prepared to block the ship.

"We as a unit are studying, and we will carry out professional investigations to reach conclusions," the lieutenant said.

"And we will also be ready for the Rachel Corrie."

The Army Radio station reported that the ship would reach Gazan waters tomorrow, however Berlin said it might not attempt to reach Gaza until early next week.

"We will probably not send her till [next] Monday or Tuesday," she said of the 1,200 tonne cargo ship.

2.15pm:

Turkey's Foreign Ministry says four Turkish citizens have been confirmed dead on the Mavi Marmara, while another five of the dead are also believed to be Turks.

Israeli authorities say they are still trying to confirm the nationalities of the dead. More as we get it.

2.06pm:

Reuters is snapping the following sentence:

"UN chief Ban Ki-Moon says if Israel had heeded calls to lift Gaza blockade flotilla incident would not have happened"

I'm guessing this means there is a statement coming from Ban. More to follow.

1.25pm:

From the Guardian's Middle East editor, Ian Black, on Egypt opening the Rafah border crossing to the Gaza strip:

In one of the first signs of fallout from the Gaza Freedom Flotilla incident Egypt has announced that it is opening the the southern border of the Gaza Strip at Rafah to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.

The crossing normally opens once a month for a few days. The sudden decision seems to show Egyptian embarrassment at Arab charges of complicity with the the Israeli blockade.

President Hosni Mubarak is deeply hostile to Hamas, which has close links to the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's largest – and semi-outlawed – opposition group.

1.14pm:

Matthew Weaver emails with a summary of the day so far:

• The UN has called for an independent inquiry into the raid, but its compromise statement on the incident stops short of an outright condemnation.

• The Free Gaza Movement has sent more aid ships to the blockaded area despite warnings that they will be stopped by the Israeli military.

• The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned Israel not to test Turkey's patience. He called for Israel to be "punished" for the attack.

• More eyewitness accounts are emerging of what happened. Haneen Zuabi, a member of the Israeli Knesset who was on the Mavi Marmara, accused Israel of trying to "cause the largest number of fatalities" and said she did not hear any warning.

• The Foreign Office has confirmed that a British man was among the injured

• Israel has continued to insist that is troops were acting in self defence after they were attacked by activists.

12.23pm:

Haneen Zuabi, an Israeli-Arab MP in the Knessett who was on the Mavi Marmara, has accused her country of trying to "cause the largest number of fatalities".

She was released today after questioning and has been giving her version of events at a news conference, according to the Israeli news website ynetnews.com she told a conference.

"I entered the captain's room. He was asked to stop by the Israeli soldiers. He said, 'We are a Turkish ship.' We were 130 miles off. It was 11:30 pm. We saw four Israel vessels, they were at a distance because we were in international waters. At 4:15 am we saw the ships approaching.

"They were dinghies and choppers. At 4:30 am the forces landed quickly. I did not hear any warning from the ships, because noise was coming from the ships and the choppers. Within 10 minutes there were already three bodies. The entire operation took about an hour."

"There was not a single passenger who raised a club. We put on our life vests. There were no clubs or anything of the sort. There were gunshots, I don't know if they were live bullets or not. There were gunshots fired from the ships in our direction.

"A clear message was being sent to us, for us to know that our lives were in danger. We convened that we were not interested in a confrontation. What we saw was five bodies. There were only civilians and there were no weapons. There was a sense that I many not come out of it alive. Israel spoke of a provocation, but there was no provocation."

12.05pm:

Reuters has more from activists arriving at Athens airport – this is from Mihalis Grigoropoulos, who was steering one of the ships in the flotilla:

"They (Israelis) came down from helicopters and threw ropes from inflatable boats, climbing aboard. There was teargas and live ammunition.

"I was steering the ship, we saw them capture another ship in front of us, which was the Turkish passenger vessel with more than 500 people on board and heard shots fired.

"We did not resist at all, we couldn't even if we had wanted to. What could we have done against the commandos who climbed aboard? The only thing some people tried was to delay them from getting to the bridge, forming a human shield. They were fired upon with plastic bullets and were stunned with electric devices.

"There was great mistreatment after our arrest. We were essentially hostages, like animals on the ground.

"They wouldn't let us use the bathroom, wouldn't give us food or water and they took video of us despite international conventions banning this."

11.38am:

The news agency Reuters are running accounts of some of the activists in the flotilla.
Nilufer Cetin was travelling with her young son when the Israelli commandos boarded her ship.
"We stayed in our cabin and played games amid the sound of gunfire. My son has been nervous since yesterday afternoon ... I did not need to protect my son. They knew there was a baby on board. I protected him by staying in my cabin, then went to the bathroom. I put a gas mask and life jacket on my son. We did not experience any other problems on board, only a water shortage. We took walks on the deck, played games with my son. The curtains were drawn, so I did not see not the raid as it was happening. I only heard the voices. There are lightly and heavily wounded people.

"There are thousands, millions of babies in Gaza. My son and I wanted to play with those babies. We planned to deliver them aid. We wanted to say 'Look, it's a safe place, I came here with my baby-son'. I saw my husband from a distance, he looked OK. The ship personnel was not wounded, because they (the soldiers) needed them to take the ship to port. I will go again if another ship goes."

11.15am:

The Palestinian-led International Solidarity Movement is reporting that a US activist injured in protests in the West Bank yesterday has lost her eye.

An American solidarity activist was shot in the face with a tear gas canister during a demonstration in Qalandiya, today. Emily Henochowicz is currently in Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem undergoing surgery to remove her left eye, following the demonstration that was held in protest to Israel's murder of at least 10 civilians aboard the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in international waters this morning.

21-year old Emily Henochowicz was hit in the face with a tear gas projectile fired directly at her by an Israeli soldier during the demonstration at Qalandiya checkpoint today. Israeli occupation forces fired volleys of tear gas at unarmed Palestinian and international protesters, causing mass panic amongst the demonstrators and those queuing at the largest checkpoint separating the West Bank and Israel.