Israel trying to prevent more flotillas

Israel has reportedly contacted some Western states, urging them to warn their citizens against joining Gaza-bound humanitarian convoys.

Tel Aviv has called on the nations to issue travel warnings against their country’s activists, Israeli government officials told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

The officials said the countries had taken note of the Israeli request. “Where there is a will, there is a way,” said one senior authority on the prospects of such warnings.

Such move, he said, would leave any given humanitarian campaigner “on his own.”

Israeli forces on May 31 attacked the multinational Freedom Flotilla relief mission, which had set sail to break Tel Aviv’s siege of the Gaza Strip. The assault in international waters left at least 20 human rights campaigners dead.

British daily The Guardian has reported that nine Turks, among the fatalities, had been shot a total of 30 times while five of them had been killed by headshots.

The fleet was carrying nearly 700 activists from 42 nations as well as some 10,000 tons of relief supplies en route to the coastal sliver.