Tel Aviv, June 08: Israel’s army announced late Monday the creation of a team of high-ranking officials charged with examining and learning from the deadly May 31 operation against a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
The team — to be headed by a general in the reserves, Giora Eiland — would “examine the unfolding of the operation and to draw lessons from it,” an army statement said.
“It must submit its conclusions between now and July 4,” it added.
Besides Eiland, the panel includes two other generals in the reserves, a colonel in the marine reserves and a high official in the defence ministry, it said.
Israeli special forces stormed a flotilla of six ships carrying aid for blockaded Gaza, killing nine Turks on board one of the vessels and sparking international outrage.
Israel has defended itself saying it must stop vessels from travelling to Gaza since they could be carrying weapons for Hamas, a democratically elected resistance movement committed to ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Israel also claims the aid the activists wanted to deliver is not needed, despite international outcry over the humanitarian situation in Gaza.
Israel has resisted calls for an international enquiry, but the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced plans for an internal examination of the events and the blockade.
Media reports said the panel could include international figures chosen by Israel.
Human rights groups, both international and Israeli, slammed Israel’s siege of Gaza, branding it “collective punishment.”
Gaza is still considered under Israeli occupation as Israel controls air, sea and land access to the Strip.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, Gaza’s sole border crossing that bypasses Israel, rarely opens as Egypt is under immense US and Israeli pressure to keep the crossing shut.
The Israeli government on Monday defeated no-confidence motions over its May 31 raid on Gaza-bound activist aid ships but faced more calls for a probe of the deadly commando operation.
A motion by the main opposition party Kadima, which objected to the handling of the raid, was defeated 59-25 while another two brought by Arab parties opposed to the Gaza blockade both went down 81-8.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak defended last week’s raid.
He told MPs, however, that Israel would undertake an internal “examination” of events and of whether the blockade and its implementation were in keeping with international law.
“We will draw conclusions on both the political front and the security level,” Barak said, while stressing that the blockade was essential to keep weaponry out of Hamas’s hands.
Barak acknowledged the violence on the Turkish ferry Mavi Marmara “was not the result we wanted” but stressed that Israel needed to take extraordinary measures to protect itself.
But US Vice President Joe Biden said Washington was eyeing “new ways” to deal with the blockade, which has been in the spotlight since last week’s pre-dawn naval raid.
And Ankara, furious over the deaths of the Turks — one of whom also holds US citizenship — vowed that normalisation of ties would be out of the question unless Israel accepts an international inquiry.
Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Istanbul that if Israel continues to reject calls for such a probe “it would mean that there are certain facts they want to hide.”
But Israel insisted it was capable of holding itself to account. “We have no plans to put the soldiers through questioning, either in English or in Hebrew,” Barak said.
—Agencies