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Fri, July 09, 2010 | Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center

Most of the injured in the confrontation on board the Mavi Marmara have been positively identified as activists of IHH and Turkish organizations collaborating with it, most probably Islamist by nature. The findings are consistent with our inquiry into the identity of the nine people killed on board the Mavi Marmara.

Overview

1. Information accumulated since the violent confrontation on board the Mavi Marmara has made it possible to identify most of the people injured in the confrontation and analyze their organizational affiliation. The names of the 53 injured people (23 of them severely injured) appeared on lists published by the IHH (see Appendix A). Their organizational affiliation was examined based on a document seized in the latest flotilla, specifying the organizations to which the Turkish passengers belonged (see Appendix B).

2. Judging by the names of those injured in the confrontation, all of them but one are Turkish nationals. Most of them belonged to IHH or Turkish local networks affiliated with IHH, most probably Islamist by nature. That conclusion supports a similar conclusion reached by examining the names of the Turkish nationals killed in the confrontation, according to which eight out of the nine people killed belonged to Islamist organizations, most of them radical and anti-Western, with about half of them having expressed an intention to die as shaheeds.

3. On the other hand, the list of injured people released by IHH did not include activists belonging to pro-Palestinian organizations or human rights organizations from Western countries or the Arab/Muslim world, except for one activist (who was not seriously injured) from Indonesia. That conclusion is similar to the one reached by examining the names of the people killed in the confrontation. This is yet another testimony that human rights activists who joined the flotilla out of humanitarian considerations took no part in the violent confrontation initiated by IHH.

4. The findings are supported by a great deal of information accumulated since the IDF takeover of the Mavi Marmara pertaining to advance preparations for severe violence against IDF soldiers, which was carried out by a hard core of operatives belonging to IHH and Turkish organizations collaborating with it (some of them known to us as clearly Islamist).

Details of the examination results

The data base

5. The examination of the identity and organizational affiliation of those injured on board the Mavi Marmara is based on lists released by IHH following the incident. Those tables contain the names of 23 people who were seriously injured and 30 people who sustained less severe injuries.^[1] The lists were compared to the list of Turkish passengers seized in the last flotilla, which specified the organizational affiliation and function of each Turkish passenger.

Findings from the list of seriously injured people

6. All 23 people who were seriously injured are Turkish—none of them is a foreign national. All those injured are men. Comparison of their names to another document seized in the flotilla shows that each one of them (with the exception of one) boarded the Mavi Marmara in Antalya.

7. Out of the people who were seriously injured, three are IHH activists (including a first aid medic). Thirteen others are activists from local Turkish networks, probably Islamist, which cooperate with IHH. The rest of the seriously injured men are: two first aid medics (whose organizational affiliation is unclear); two donors who were probably permitted to join the flotilla because of their donations; one clerk and two Turkish passengers who do not appear on the list of Turkish passengers which served as the data base for the examination (therefore, their identity is unknown to us).

Findings from the list of other people who sustained injuries
(that were not defined as serious)

8. Thirty injured people appeared in that category (the IHH table goes up to 31; however, one number was skipped, meaning that the correct total is 30). All the injured people, with the exception of one (an Indonesian) are Turkish nationals. All except for one boarded the ship in Antalya.

9. Out of those injured, seven belong to IHH (activists and volunteers), two of them being first aid medics. Thirteen others are activists and volunteers belonging to local Turkish networks (believed by the ITIC to be Islamist organizations) which collaborate with IHH. Another is a member of the Felicity Party (SP), an Islamic party which collaborates with IHH. The rest of the injured people in that category include a journalist, five activists whose identity is unclear, one Turkish passenger who does not appear on the list of Turkish passengers that we have, one donor and one person from Indonesia.^[2]

Conclusions

10. Examination of the identity and affiliation of the wounded supports the conclusion that the fighting against the IDF was waged by hard core IHH operatives and people from Turkish Islamist organizations and networks which collaborate with IHH. The number of injured among operatives belonging to IHH and its allies was at least 16 out of those 23 who sustained serious injuries, and 21 out of the 30 other injured people (that number of IHH activists and those affiliated with it may be larger since the affiliation of some of the injured is unclear to us).

11. Other categories of flotilla participants who sustained injuries:

1. First aid medics: a relatively large number of first aid medics were injured in the incident (three of them sustained serious injuries, and two sustained other injuries). Three of the first aid medics belong to IHH. It may be assumed (even though we do not possess concrete information to that effect) that putting a large number of first aid medics among the Mavi Marmara passengers was part of the plan prepared by IHH for the confrontation with the IDF (which was conceived in the first place as a violent confrontation that would involve casualties).

2. Journalist: many journalists were put on board the Mavi Marmara as part of the preparations for the media coverage of the confrontation; their presence on the battle field is therefore not incidental (about 10 percent of all Turkish passengers were media people; in addition, there were dozens of reporters from the Arab/Muslim world and Western countries).

12. Conspicuously absent from the list of people injured in the confrontation were activists and volunteers from the Arab/Muslim world (with the exception of the person from Indonesia) and Western countries. This reinforces the assumption that activists and volunteers who did not belong to the hard core IHH operatives and their Islamist supporters avoided taking part in the fighting.

Appendix A

List of names of the people injured in the violent
confrontation, as published by IHH^[3]

Appendix B

List of Turkish passengers on board the Mavi Marmara and other ships, as well as their organizational affiliation

Overview

1. Following is a table with a list of the Turkish passengers on the various ships, also listing their organizational affiliation. The list was seized on one of the ships taking part in the flotilla. We cross-examined the list against the names of the people injured in the incident as published by IHH.

2. The list shows that there were 91 IHH members on the Mavi Marmara, 57 of them listed in a separate category of IHH activists and 34 listed in categories of various NGOs and volunteers.

3. The list features several dozen Turkish organizations and networks, some of them known to be clearly Islamist by nature, some with a large presence across Turkey and some with a minor, local deployment. The major Turkish organizations are the Felicity Party (four activists), the Ismailaga association (three activists), Mazlumder (five activists), Ozgurder (five activists), and Erdemliler (one activist). The passenger list also includes 33 Turkish media people listed under “Media” category.

The original document

Notes:

1 The tables appeared in an IHH summary about the flotilla, on the websites of IHH and ECESG, the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza. The numbers appearing in the tables are similar to the number given in an interview by Bulent Yildirim, who said that “We have sacrificed nine martyrs and fifty men were injured… However, we shall not rest until our goal is achieved” (felixnews, June 29, 2010).

2 The injured Indonesian national is Okvianto Emil Baharuddin, who sustained an injury to his hand. He is an activist for a pro-Palestinian organization called KISPA. There were also reports about two other Indonesians injured in the confrontation, who do not appear on the IHH list for unclear reasons. It is unclear why the Indonesian activist (or activists) were injured. To the best of our knowledge, the Indonesian delegation consisted of humanitarian aid activists who did not take part in the violence initiated by IHH.

3 From pages 32-33 in the flotilla summary document released by IHH, titled “Palestine Our Route,
Humanitarian Aid Our Load, Flotilla Campaign, Summary Report” (found on the IHH and ECESG
websites).