Kevin Neish, who flew in from Turkey, arrived in Toronto and was greeted by a few supporters and one cousin while he waited to catch a plane to Victoria where other family members were waiting for him.
Neish, who seemed tired and spoke in a soft voice, said he was sad coming home. "Sad because I left some people behind that were in Israeli jails," he said.
"There was a fellow that was locked up that didn't get out with me and he turned up this morning in Istanbul, a split down the middle of his head and blood from head to toe."
Patrick Martin writes in www.theglobeandmail.com that no one could have predicted the fallout from this week's flotilla fiasco
Press TV Correspondent Hassan Ghani was aboard one of the Freedom Flotilla ship that came under the Israeli attack on May 31. He was released from Israeli captivity and went to Turkey to attend the funerals before visiting Iran.
Weekend demonstrations will call for an international investigation, for letting the "Rachel Corrie" through to Gaza and a general lifting of the siege — as well as calling for a complete end to the 43 years' old occupation. For several weeks the peace movement in Israel has been organizing to mark June 5, the 43rd anniversary of the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Demonstrations and rallies were planned — some in cooperation with Palestinian groups — calling for an end to the occupation.
The assault on the Mavi Marmara was wrong, and a gift to Israel's enemies, say The New Republic.
Armed Israeli commandos, the elite of the elites, rappelled to the deck of a Turkish ship carrying humanitarian relief supplies to the 1.5 million prisoners in the Gaza concentration camp.
In Redress Information & Analysis, Neve Gordon considers the flaws and contradictions in Israel's justification for attacking the Gaza-bound international aid flotilla and murdering innocent peace activists on board.
In Redress Information & Analysis, Jonathan Cook reports on the eyewitness account of an Arab member of the Israeli Parliament who says that Israeli warships fired on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla "a few minutes before commandoes abseiled from a helicopter directly above them," and suggested that some unarmed peace activists had been executed while others were deliberately left to bleed to death.
Autopsies are coming out on Saturday revealing some details about the circumstances of the Israeli attack that left at least nine aid workers dead. Doctors say that several of the victims were shot in the head and that in at least one case the gun was just inches from the aid worker’s head when fired.
In Antiwar.com, Ran Ha Cohen takes a look at how the Israeli media covered the assault on the “Freedom Flotilla” in his Letter From Israel.
An open letter to the British prime minister
Li Tang (li@tang-asia.com) in his blog writes: I'm back in the fray of things again. Commented on the Today's newspaper online version about a commentary made by Thomas Friedman who argued something along the lines that the Turks were playing up to the Islamic world by getting upset over a raid on one of their ships by Israeli commandos because the ship was carrying aid to Gaza.
Dear Mr. President,
I am sure you know more about the situation with Israel's attack on the Freedom Flotilla than I do. The question that I and the rest of the world is asking is, 'What are you going to do?'
JERUSALEM: Israel on Thursday rejected calls from the United Nations and others for an international investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla but left the door open to foreign involvement.
Israel says the commandos used force, killing nine people, only after activists attacked them with knives, crowbars and clubs, as well as two pistols grabbed from raiders.
Here is a list of names and some details of pro-Palestinian activists from Turkey who were reported killed in the Israeli interception of their convoy carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza.
LONDON: Richard Burden MP, chair of the Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group, has demanded that Israel be held to account for its appalling attack on the Gaza aid flotilla.
IHS Global Insight Perspective says: Though the Israel's deadly raid on Gaza aid ship sparked international condemnation, the Middle East state is however suffering from the blow that it dealt the flotilla.
This is a large special advertisement that was published in Hebrew in the Haaretz newspaper on June 1. The advertisement was inserted by Gush Shalom.
RAMALLAH: Tuesday's general strike dominated all West Bank cities. The strike was in support for the victims of the Freedom Flotilla which the Israeli navy attacked while it was on its way to the blockaded Gaza Strip.
KAMPALA, Uganda: UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged Israel to lift its Gaza blockade, stressing if Israel had heeded international calls to end it the raid on a Gaza aid ship flotilla would not have happened.
GENEVA: Israel, in the dock at the top United Nations human rights body over its bloody raid on a humanitarian aid flotilla, accused the activists on Tuesday of being a "lynch mob" with ties to Islamist Hamas.
CAIRO: An Egyptian official says the government is temporarily lifting its blockade of the Gaza Strip to allow aid into the area a day after Israel raided an international flotilla carrying supplies to the Palestinian territory.
AMMAN: Israel on Tuesday night released 121 activists held during the attack on the Gaza-bound aid flotilla and the Jordanian authorities were last night conducting arrangements for receiving them on the King Hussein crossing point between Jordan and the West Bank, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Faisal Malkawi.
Cynthia Mckinney says I am outraged at Israel's latest criminal act. I mourn with my fellow Free Gaza travelers, the lives that have been lost by Israel's needless, senseless act against unarmed humanitarian activists.
Uri Avnery says this morning a crime was perpetrated in the middle of the sea, by order of the government of Israel and the IDF Command. A warlike attack against aid ships and deadly shooting at peace and humanitarian aid activists was carried out.
Kourosh Ziabari says it's not unjustifiable to consider Israel as the absolute incarnation of fraudulence, relentlessness and brutality. Since its establishment, the Zionist regime has carried out actions which contravene the international regulations and cancel out human rights in one way or another. Only a brief look into the account of Israel's bloody interaction with the Palestinian people over the past years shows us that this fabricated regime does not deserve "the right of existence", as the US and European officials put it periodically.
While most of the Israeli news outlets toed the official line, Haaretz.com was the only newspaper to point out that Israel was out of its depth in this latest international debacle following the assault on the Freedom Flotilla late Sunday night.
Here are some facts about the Turkish charity group that organized the aid convoy for Gaza which was stormed by Israeli Marines on Monday while at sea.
DOHA: Al Jazeera is extremely concerned by the actions of Israeli armed forces who have detained Al Jazeera staff who were covering the humanitarian aid mission on the ships bound for Gaza. The ships were attacked by Israeli armed forces early Monday morning.
Savoy Signal editor Jean-Paul Cassone' described the Israeli firing upon the aid flotilla victims bound for Gaza as "an act beyond Nazi madness"!
The pro-Israel group AIPAC has succeeded lately in getting the signatures of some three-quarters of the members of Congress on letters broadly in support of Israel, and its latest effort involves rallying explicit Congressional support for Israel's side of the Gaza flotilla incident.
ISTANBUL: Mourners in Istanbul hoisted coffins above their heads to cheers of "God is great!" Thursday to honor activists slain during an Israel commando raid, as Israel rejected demands for an international panel to investigate its deadly seizure of an Gaza-bound aid ship.
BERLIN: Pro-Palestinian activists returning to Europe said Israeli commandos used stun guns on passengers and beat them during the deadly raid on an aid flotilla that was trying to break Israel's blockade of Gaza.
JERUSALEM: Pro-Palestinian activists sent another boat to challenge Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Egypt declared it was temporarily opening a crossing into the Palestinian territory after a botched raid on an aid flotilla that ended with Israeli soldiers killing nine activists.
Activists tell of beatings during Israeli raid
ANKARA: The Turkish prime minister furiously blamed Israel on Tuesday for a "bloody massacre" that killed nine people on a Gaza-bound Turkish aid ship, and proclaimed that the two countries had reached a turning point in their long-standing alliance.
LONDON: The Muslim Council of Britain Monday called on Foreign Secretary William Hague to condemn Israel's attack on an aid convoy to the besieged people of Gaza. There are currently unconfirmed reports that 19 people have been killed and many injured in the flotilla in international waters. The fate of 28 British people who joined the peaceful convoy is also unclear.
A woman, center, carries a Turkish flag during a protest at Martyrs' square in the southern port city of Sidon, Lebanon, Monday, May 31, 2010, after Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing nine passengers in a botched raid that provoked international outrage and a diplomatic crisis. (AP)
BEIRUT: Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah guerrilla group said on Monday Israel's action against Gaza-bound aid ships in which at least 10 people were killed, was a "terrorist act that deserves international punishment."
Israeli commandos stormed the ships before dawn and at least 10 pro-Palestinian activists on board were killed, unleashing fierce criticism from the Jewish state's friends and enemies.
WASHINGTON : US President Barack Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu he deeply regretted the loss of life in an Israeli raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on Monday and urged him to quickly get to the bottom of the incident.
JERUSALEM: Israeli commandos on Monday stormed six ships carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists on an aid mission to the blockaded Gaza Strip, killing at least 10 people and wounding dozens after encountering unexpected resistance as the forces boarded the vessels.
Israel boat raid sparks condemnations, protests
Israel aid ship attack is terrorism - Hezbollah
EU demands inquiry into Israeli military action
Obama urges Netanyahu to get facts on Gaza ship raid
JERUSALEM: Israeli commandos rappelled down to an aid flotilla sailing to thwart a Gaza blockade on Monday, clashing with pro-Palestinian activists on the lead ship in a botched raid that left at least nine passengers dead.
