ECESG: Israel committed passport theft in the Freedom Fleet massacre

ECESG: Israel committed passport theft in the Freedom Fleet massacre

BRUSSELS,  Both activists from Jordan and members of the European Campaign to End the Siege on Gaza (ECESG) have revealed that the Israeli military stole dozens of passports from both Jordanians and European supporters on board the Freedom Flotilla during the recent act of aggression it committed against the humanitarian mission.

The ECESG stated in a report on Sunday that Israeli Occupation Forces stole more than 31 passports belonging to activists on the ships.  The Brussels-based campaign fears that Israeli authorities, particularly the Mossad (Foreign Intelligence Service) will use the foreign passports to carry out new assassinations as was the case with the usage of stolen passports to assassinate Hamas leader Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh in Dubai, UAE.  The campaign appealed to European countries to be serious in following up on this case, fearing repetition of Israeli crimes at a worldwide level.

In a press conference in Amman, Jordan on Sunday, the board chairman of the professional syndicates union, Ahmad Al-Armouti, announced the names of eight Jordanian citizens whose passports were stolen by the Zionist military.

Head of the union’s anti-normalization committee, Badi Al-Rafaiyiah, said that Israel “stole our luggage and laptops, and the Zionists promised that they would hand over our possessions on our return, but they did not do so.”

Mahmoud Abu Ghunayma, one of the victims of the passport theft, said, “The Freedom Flotilla has racked up many victories, the most important of which is winning over the world.”  He said that one non-Arab activist told him that he was heading for Gaza in an aid mission because he couldn’t look at his own face in the mirror out of shame for what was happening to the Palestinian people.

Those present at the conference gave their accounts of Israel’s barbaric treatment towards the Freedom Flotilla participants.  Khadir Al-Mashaayikh, a Jordanian reporter covering the Freedom Flotilla story, said that an Israeli sniper fired at him from a helicopter, despite the fact that he was wearing a jacket with the word press clearly inscribed on it, adding that the bullets were stuck in his anti-bullet vest. He also said that they confiscated his Thuraya telephone which contained his personal journalistic archive and more than nine hundred phone numbers of political and media figures.

It was also mentioned during the convention that the Israeli military confiscated packages of milk formulated for premature babies, purchased at the special request of health authorities in Gaza for 16 thousand euros.

Some of those present noted that it is the responsibility of the state of Jordan to retrieve the passports, adding that the theft was an infringement on Jordanian sovereignty.