Gaza Flotilla seven

Sunday / Monday 30/31 May

We cast off from the docks at Antalia on the 27th. We were gradually joined on the high seas by the other five ships. We stopped moving on the 29th. Just after 4.30pm with no warning we are moving again. Mavi Marmara the vanguard with the others arranged behind in a line. An Israeli spy drone appears to our stern on the starboard - a tiny pale triangle high in the sky. I try showering: we are getting short of water so the showers now consist of a hose connected to a tank of brown lumpy stuff - but I use it and it's a palpable improvement. Kevin, George Galloway's right-hand man on the VP Convoy, says he'll wait until he gets to a hotel.
I swap my shorts for my combats in readiness for tomorrow - we have been told to be ready by 7.00. Ready - for what?
As ever, the prayers start at 4am, but I am personally glad to say only heralded by the three-note jingle - So-Me-Do - without the usual distortion-level roar of the muezzin. We are at the same time called to put on our life-jackets, which we had to practise earlier at 1.00. The 'call' proceeds anyway. I go up to the middle deck, watch the watchers, looking at the sea, moon, our fellow ships' lights. I try filming but it's mostly too dark. Someone on the deck above throws light on the men below and out to sea. A helicopter aproaches, heard rather than seen. Now it's almost perched on our top. I see its propellors fanning above. Its noise drowns everything else. Boats of soldiers are running parallel to us.
Bangs. Helicopter returns. Clouds of dust or tear gas coming down from the helicopter. Loud explosions - sound bombs? Some brightly lit damage to the port side of the ship - I lean out as far as possible to get film.
Snappy bangs.
Ratatat ratatat.
They're aiming at the guy with the handheld searchlight.
I'm behind him to get a good picture. Someone slaps me on the arm. I look. No-one there! It was a bullet. Just skimmed off me, though. It stings. Impossible to see if there's damage with this bulky lifejacket. I retreat down inside. Two ad hoc treatment centres, drip feeds too, have been set up to deal with the wounded. Alex down on the middle landing tells me I have no visible damage. No possibility of going back up just now as all traffic is furiously coming down - escapers and people carrying the injured. Much blood on the stairs. I get out my padded coat for the first-aiders to use as extra bedding, and keep out of the way, in the lounge. Laura appears, looking for cushions for the "hospital". She has just watched one of the injured volunteers die. Through the lounge windows I can see soldiers on the bow deck. After red-gold sunrise they are air-lifted off again - I think ...

A male voice announces: "The main engine of the ship has been disabled. Please return to your seats."
A female voice: "We are civilians. Please stop shooting. We are in urgent need of medical help. We have severely wounded people on board."

Everyone now (6.30 local time) sitting around drinking water. The windows are open, which makes sitting here a little more bearable. ( Despite the constant roar of the air-conditioning it's usually stuffy) I'm wrong about the army! (much later I discover that although from where I stood it looked as if all invaders were coming up from the boats, they were being dropped from the helicopter)They've taken over the deck and upper deck levels and will handcuff anyone going up. A couple of my near neighbours throw their mobile phones out to the sea and one takes out a memory card, twists it to destroy it. I remove and hide the precious memory card from my camera 1, containing the 'holiday snaps', street scenes I hope to use for paintings, Istanbul, plus interviews,leaving harbour, our sister ships as movies. I stash camera 2 with all the attack footage way at the back of my suitcase.

The boy soldiers enter and order us to leave, single file, through the port side door to bow. They are dressed to look as threatening as possible: despite the heat inside and out, they are in full battle gear, helmets; balaclavas covering the lower part of their faces and black fingerless gloves. I get out, am grabbed and searched. The first boy tells me I cannot have my little bag of drugs with me. I explain it's medicine. Sakir, behind me, reinforces my protestation. They let it through. My hands tied behind my back with plastic handcuffs. All my pockets emptied by the two rapid searchers, practically ripped open. My sleeveless Levi jacket left hanging behind me from my wrists and I am holding my bag behind as the search continues. My camera is removed. Also my digital recorder. My wallet pulled out of my back pocket, examined and stuffed back in my front pocket. A final, more thorough searcher finds a microscopically tiny bulge in my left hip pocket, digs into it and pulls out the plastic wallet with my business cards. They are all chucked into the mud. At the back he strikes gold, crows " Memory card!" - he holds the not-so-carefully hidden treasure up, passes it to his mate or just throws it into the sea.
I then have to struggle up the steps to the middle deck. All the men have to kneel down in rows just as the Americans do it in Guantanamo. Tied hands. Stress position. For three hours. In whirrs a helicopter. It parks above us for twenty minutes, creating a gale-storm effect, whipping up the sea and almost knocking us over. It's a considerable effort to remain upright; anything that is not fixed down is blown off the deck, and the huge banners which had decorated the sides for our leaving, now tied up above us, are getting ripped. The second time it returns, I lose my grip on my precious bag of tricks, but it is blown against the next guy. By rolling on my side and 'Houdini-ing' my left hand round to one side I can get hold again - but one large bag of pills (from the Co-op) falls out. I have to then keep up the struggle while clenching the fallen bag between my knees.

The 'copter visits are two or three times to pick up injured voyagers, who are stretchered up the gangway to the top deck, but it remains for the usual twenty minutes to knock us about, each time.

My left hand has come out of its cuff, so I am able to wave to a nearby boy soldier, who beckons me over. The reason for my wave is that I need to go for a piss. I smile about the cuff, 'Well, nothing's perfect.' -but he just grimly recuffs me, and replies, 'Not now.' when I make my request. Half an hour later I ask another boy, who vaguely indicates that I may move my arse a few feet on the deck to join the queue. It's agony by now.
(at least one of them is a girl; I can tell by looking above the balaclava)


After many more 'copter passes we are ordered to get up and walk round the stern and back, to the port side door back down to the lounge. It's a real mess. All our luggage and loose clothing, books, food have been rearranged in two landfill-type heaps, many cases and bags ripped open. As soon as we find seats and a boy gives us a speech saying that we may now use the toilet in a a strict rota of one-at-a-time, I beckon him over and say,(with what I hope is a wry, winning smile), 'I really need to use the toilet.' He allows me to go forward to the door, where my pockets are searched (again) and my hands are freed, but re-cuffed, to the front, on my return. In the toilets the boy soldiers have mischieviously heaped our clothing into the piss.
I manage to negotiate the double-checkpoint system for the toilets twice during our long journey to - we assume - an Israeli port. On my second return I miss my seat as another guy has taken it. I am pressured by a boy soldier to sit elsewhere; a seat coincidentally in the same corner of the next semi-circle. I don't see my bag of drugs, and go into blind panic mode. So much that one soldier-boy leans over to say 'If you have lost your drugs we will find them.' On the face of it this sounds almost human, although in retrospect I am sure he would have done nothing and only wanted me to sit down.

Nine of my friends have been killed today. I've been tortured and humiliated and face an uncertain future. A guy from Belgium leans towards me (standing is verboten) and hisses -'Hey, hey- look; keep quiet- don't make trouble!'