Huwaida Arraf, an activist who says she was a passenger aboard the ‘Freedom Flotilla’ raided by Israeli forces while trying to delver aid to the Gaza Strip, provided one of the first personal accounts of the incident to CNN today.
According to her biography on the website of Global Exchange, an international human rights group, Arraf was one of the organizers of the first naval challenge to Israel’s blockade in 2008, and is a co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement.
Arraf, who said she was speaking from Jerusalem after being released by Israeli authorities, told CNN that the goal of the flotilla was to put pressure on the Israeli marine blockade of Gaza, and that the activists were not looking for violence.
“We made it very clear with this flotilla via the media and otherwise that we would be unarmed and carrying cargo for the Gaza Strip,” Arraf said, adding that to the best of her knowledge, none of the ships were carrying weapons. (Israel has claimed passengers on one of the ships used iron bars, knives and guns to attack soldiers.)
Arraf said she was on the vessel called Challenger 1, an American ship, and that Israel contacted the boats by radio when they were 90 miles off the coast.
“We were well into international waters,” Arraf said. According to her, the ships were traveling close together, and she “saw the Israeli naval boats go up to [the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara] and start firing. We heard a number of explosions … The soldiers were throwing concussion grenades and firing.” Arraf said she saw passengers use water hoses to defend themselves.
“Eventually they overtook our ship,” Arraf said. “They used concussion grenades, sound bombs, and pellets they fired at us and then jumped aboard the ship. We tried to keep them off. We told them, ‘We are unarmed, this is an American vessel, we’re international civilians, get off of our ship.’ And then they started beating people — my head was smashed against the ground.”
Arraf said that the flotilla was a political act designed to challenge the Israeli blockade “because it is illegal and it is collective punishment.”
Arraf says she hasn’t been able to contact the activists still being held by Israeli authorities. “I’m trying to find out what happened to the rest of my colleagues.”
CNN made it clear that it had not been able to verify Arraf’s account of the incident.
