Q&A session with flotilla raid survivor

Huwaida Arraf, an activist onboard one of the ships seized by the Israeli Defense Force in the 2010 Gaza flotilla raid, spoke at the SUB on Tuesday.

Arraf, the co-founder and chair of the International Solidarity Movement, the Free Gaza Movement and the Gaza Freedom Flotillas, began sailing to Gaza in August 2008 with just two small boats. She did not expect to make it to Gaza, but was hoping instead to get the world’s attention.

In 2010, the flotilla set sail. It included four cargo ships, three passenger ships, 700 people and 10,000 tons of aid, Arraf said. But the flotilla didn’t make it to Gaza. The flotilla was attacked May 31, leaving nine dead and more than 50 wounded.
Daily Lobo: What did you experience aboard the flotilla that was attacked last May?

Huwaida Arraf: The biggest ship was called the Mavi Marmara. It was a Turkish ship, and it had about 600 people on it … I was on a ship called the Challenger I, which was sailing very close to the Mavi Marmara. (There) were only 14 people on it. … At around 11 p.m., the Israeli military navy started radioing us, and I was in the wheelhouse where the captain was, so I was listening to all the communication and speaking on behalf of our ship … The Israeli military issued a directive for us to turn back saying, “The Gaza Strip is an area of hostilities, and we are not going to let you approach this area.” I kept repeating, “We are unarmed citizens carrying only humanitarian aid destined for the Gaza Strip, and we don’t constitute any threat to the state of Israel or the armed forces, so don’t use force against us. Don’t attack us.” But they said, “We will be ready to use all force necessary to keep you out.”

DL: What were you thinking during all this back and forth?

HA: It was actually my seventh time sailing, and I knew that they had attacked us before. But the time they had attacked us before that they surrounded our boat, armed commandos jumped on, and people were a little bit injured, but not severely. So when they issued this threat, I thought, “OK, they’re trying to scare us to make us turn back.”

DL: Then what happened?

HA: After a while they went silent for a few hours, and at around 4 a.m., one of our colleagues that we had on watch yelled down to us, “They’re coming.”… I went on the deck, and because the big Mavi Marmara ship was so close to us, I could see they attacked that ship first. All these zodiacs filled with soldiers were coming up alongside it, and there was a helicopter up above, and they were firing. I heard explosions that were sound grenades.

… Our ship decided to take off because the captain of the Mavi Marmara had told us, “Go try to get word out that we’re under attack,” because our communications had been cut … They surrounded us after about 10 minutes. … And they just beat their way onto the boat, knocking people down. They used tasers on people, sound grenades, an attack dog on board, and we were scrambling to try and put our bodies in the way of them to protect our ship, to keep them from getting in the wheelhouse and taking over our ship … But they had me down on the ground basically stomping, putting my head into the deck which had broken glass on it, stepping on it while trying to tie my hands behind my back and take my phone. They managed to handcuff me and put a sack on my head and drag me to a part of the boat where they held me down, and a soldier went in my pants because I tried to hide my phone in my pants. But within 10-15 minutes of this kind of struggle our boat was taken over. Some of our people were hurt, but not lethally. They sailed the boat to an Israeli port and everyone was under arrest. I didn’t learn until later what happened on some of the other boats and that on the Mavi Marmara, nine people were killed and many were injured.

DL: Did you ever expect something like that would happen to the flotilla?

HA: We prepare for these scenarios, and we tell people, “We don’t know what they’ll do. They might shoot at us. They might try to sink our boat and make it look like an accident, but we feel somewhat confident that we have a lot of media and a lot of attention.” … I knew it was possible, but no, I never expected them to kill anyone, and when I found out, I was shocked.