REUVEN MOSKOVITZ, RAMI ELHANAN, LILIAN ROSENGARTEN, YONATAN SHAPIRA
via Yosh Kosminsky
The group Jewish Boat to Gaza released a statement several hours ago: “The Irene, a boat carrying nine passengers and aid for Gaza’s population, has been taken over by the Israeli navy and denied access to Gaza. The boat is flying a British flag and its passengers include citizens of the U.S., the UK, Germany and Israel. Two journalists are also on board.”

Among the passengers, reportedly now being detained by Israel: Moskovitz, from Israel, is a founding member of the Jewish-Arab village Neve Shalom — Wahat al Salaam (Oasis of Peace) — and a Nazi holocaust survivor; speaks German, Hebrew and English. Elhanan, from Israel, lost his daughter Smadar to a suicide bombing in 1997 and is a founding member of the Bereaved Families Circle of Israelis and Palestinians who lost their loved ones to the conflict; speaks Hebrew and English.

Rosengarten, from the U.S., is a peace activist and psychotherapist. She was a refugee from Nazi Germany; speaks English and German. Shapira, from Israel, is an former Israeli military pilot and now an activist for Combatants for Peace; speaks Hebrew and English.

Also, CNN is reporting: “An Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate was refused entry into Israel on Tuesday because of her participation in an aid flotilla to Gaza in June, a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry said. Mairead Maguire was detained at Ben Gurion Airport as she arrived with a delegation of other high-level women’s rights activists from around the world.”

GARETH PORTER
Porter just wrote a piece titled “UN Fact-Finding Mission Says Israelis ‘Executed’ U.S. Citizen Furkan Dogan,” which states: “The report of the fact-finding mission of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) on the Israeli attack on the Gaza flotilla released last week shows conclusively, for the first time, that U.S. citizen Furkan Dogan and five Turkish citizens were murdered execution-style by Israeli commandos.

“The report reveals that Dogan, the 19-year-old U.S. citizen of Turkish descent, was filming with a small video camera on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara when he was shot twice in the head, once in the back and in the left leg and foot and that he was shot in the face at point blank range while lying on the ground. …

“Although the report’s revelations and conclusions about the killing of Dogan and the five other victims were widely reported in the Turkish media last week, not a single story on the report … appeared in U.S. news media.”

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167