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Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Flotilla fraudsters lied about their cargo

I don't have all the details yet, but the IDF has described the goods that were on the ships:
Twenty-four hours after the last ship of the Gaza aid flotilla entered the Ashdod Port under the watchful eye of the Israeli Navy, all of the equipment on board was examined Tuesday and the majority of it was loaded onto trucks headed to the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

In a statement to reporters at the port on Tuesday, Colonel Moshe Levi, commander of the IDF’s Gaza Strip Coordination and Liaison Administration (CLA), said that none of the equipment found on board the three cargo ships was in shortage in Gaza.

“We have been working non-stop for the last twenty-four hours examining the cargo holds of the three large cargo ships and I can say with great assurance, that none of the equipment on board is needed in Gaza. The equipment that we found is all equipment that we have regularly allowed into the strip over the past year,” said Levi. “This proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that the whole premise of the voyage was for propaganda and provocation and not for humanitarian purposes.”

Among the equipment that the IDF agreed to show reporters were medical supplies, including electric vehicles for handicapped people, wheelchairs, stretchers, hospital beds and boxes of medicine. They also showed crates full of dry food products and children’s toys.
And how much cargo was on board?
Levi said that eight trucks full of equipment had already crossed into Gaza and that 20 additional trucks would be transferred throughout the night and the following day.
This didn't include the concrete, though:
According to Levi, the soldiers also found construction equipment, including sacks of concrete and metal rods. He said that Israel did not allow those products to enter into the Gaza strip for fear that they would be used to construct fortifications for terrorists and for weapons manufacture.
Assuming that the article is accurate and the majority of the cargo is being transported on 28 trucks, we can calculate roughly how much cargo was on board.

On the average week, Israel has been sending some 600 truckloads of goods to Gaza, with about 14,000 tons. That means that each truck holds roughly 25 tons or so.

Multiply that by 28and we get a grand total of 700 tons of goods. This 700 tons is the majority of the cargo. meaning that we know that there is less than 1500 tons of cargo, probably closer to 1000. 

(The "Rachel Corrie" ship from Free Gaza is still en route to break the blockade, and it is said to have some 500 tons of cement.)

So, as I confidently predicted, the "human rights" frauds have lied about the amount of goods that they were bringing, by an order of magnitude.