‘Everyone Wanted to Kill Us’: Wounded Raider

Daily News Article   —   Posted on June 2, 2010

(by Andy Soltis, NYPost.com) – The Israeli naval commando who was hurled from the upper deck of a Gaza-bound ship — and later jumped into the sea to save his life — yesterday described the harrowing ordeal of being attacked by knife-wielding “peace activists.”

“Everyone wanted to kill us,” the officer, identified only as “Captain R.,” said from his hospital bed in Haifa, where he was recovering from a stab wound to the stomach and other injuries.

He was the commander of an elite team of marines on a mission to halt the Mavi Marmara early Monday, and the second man to rappel down a rope from his Black Hawk helicopter to the top-deck roof of the ship.

“One of the guys from my group was already down there, and there were a few people on him. It started off as a one-on-one fight, but then more and more people started jumping us,” he said. “Dozens of people beat each soldier on the roof.”

He said he was forced to go for his handgun.

“I was in front of a number of people with knives and clubs. I cocked my weapon when I saw one of them coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired once. Then another 20 people came at me and threw me down to the deck below,” Captain R. said.

“Then I felt a stabbing in the stomach. It was a knife. I got the knife out, then somehow got down to the lower deck. There was another mob of people,” he told reporters.

By that point, more commandos had arrived on the upper deck and seized control of the ship. But the lowest deck, where he was, remained in the hands of the attackers.

“Another solder and I managed to get out of there and jump into the water,” he said.

Captain R. disputed earlier accounts that only a few dozen of the 600 pro-Palestinian activists took part in the violence. He said at least three quarters of those aboard were involved, “each one with a knife in his hand.”

He gave his account as Israeli brass tried to defend themselves in the face of bitter foreign denunciations of the raid, which killed nine passengers — as well as sharp domestic criticism of the way what should have been a police action turned into a high-risk operation by an outnumbered team of commandos.

Captain R. admitted that his men were stunned by what they encountered on the top deck of the Mavi Marmara.

“Though [those on the boat] wanted to break the Gaza blockade, we thought we’d encounter passive resistance, perhaps verbal resistance. We didn’t expect this,” he said. “We encountered terrorists who wanted to kill us and we did everything to prevent injury.”

Captain R. said his soldiers adhered to the values they studied, including the Israeli code known as “Purity of Arms,” in which forces show humanity toward the enemy, try not to harm noncombatants, and carefully use their weaponry only to the extent it is needed.

A top Israeli navy commander said the lesson to be learned was to avoid being outnumbered next time.

“We boarded the ship and were attacked as if it was a war,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “That will mean that we will have to come prepared in the future, as if it was a war.”

Contact Mr. Soltis at andy.soltis@nypost.com.

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