Tag: friendly fire

Israeli forces shot their own civilians, kibbutz survivor says

An Israeli woman who survived the Hamas assault on settlements near the Gaza boundary on 7 October says Israeli civilians were “undoubtedly” killed by their own security forces.

It happened when Israeli forces engaged in fierce gun battles with Palestinian fighters in Kibbutz Be’eri and fired indiscriminately at both the fighters and their Israeli prisoners.

“They eliminated everyone, including the hostages,” she told Israeli radio. “There was very, very heavy crossfire” and even tank shelling.

The woman, 44-year-old mother of three Yasmin Porat, said that prior to that, she and other civilians had been held by the Palestinians for several hours and treated “humanely.” She had fled the nearby “Nova” rave.

A recording of her interview, from the radio program Haboker Hazeh (“This Morning”) hosted by Aryeh Golan on state broadcaster Kan, has been circulating on social media.

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This Day in History: Israel Attacks The USS Liberty, Killing 34 Americans, Wounding 171

On June 8th, 1967, Israel launched an air and sea attack using fighter jets and torpedo boats against the USS Liberty, an American Navy ship with ties to the NSA that was sailing in the Mediterranean Sea near the Sinai Peninsula during the Six-Day War, in which America politically supported Israel’s fight against neighboring Arab states. The attack killed 34 Americans and wounded 171 more.

The Israeli attack on the USS Liberty remains shrouded in secrecy decades later and most files documenting the attack and its aftermath remain classified. What is known, is that the Liberty was sailing through international waters, monitoring radio chatter during Israel’s Six-Day War with the Arab states, when Israeli rockets tore through the ship. Israeli forces even deployed Napalm against the Americans.

Despite the ship clearly marking itself as an American vessel and flying a large American flag, the Israeli attack came without warning and persisted even after American distress calls were made.

While for decades the attack has been labeled as accidental by the US and Israeli governments, CIA documents that remain partially redacted and were published by numerous news agencies, including the Israeli outlet Haaretz, show that Israeli pilots were ordered to attack the Liberty, even after telling their commanders that the ship was American.

“This is an American ship. Do you still want us to attack?” an Israeli pilot asked the “IDF war room” in a communication obtained by the United States.

“Yes, follow orders,” the war room responded.

“But sir, it’s an American ship – I can see the flag!” the pilot said back.

“Never mind; hit it,” the war room commanded.

According to the USS Liberty Veterans’ Association:

“At 1400 hours, while approximately about 17 nautical miles off the northern Sinai coast and about 25 nautical miles northwest of El Arish, USS Liberty’s crew observed three surface radar contacts closing with their position at high speed. A few moments later, the bridge radar crew observed high speed aircraft passing over the surface returns on the same heading. Within a few short moments, and without any warning, Israeli fighter aircraft launched a rocket attack on USS Liberty. The aircraft made repeated firing passes, attacking USS Liberty with rockets and their internal cannons. After the first flight of fighter aircraft had exhausted their ordnance, subsequent flights of Israeli fighter aircraft continued to prosecute the attack with rockets, cannon fire, and napalm.”

At no point during the Israeli attack on the Liberty did the Americans return fire.

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New revelations in attack on American spy ship

Bryce Lockwood, Marine staff sergeant, Russian-language expert, recipient of the Silver Star for heroism, ordained Baptist minister, is shouting into the phone.

“I’m angry! I’m seething with anger! Forty years, and I’m seething with anger!”

Lockwood was aboard the USS Liberty, a super-secret spy ship on station in the eastern Mediterranean, when four Israeli fighter jets flew out of the afternoon sun to strafe and bomb the virtually defenseless vessel on June 8, 1967, the fourth day of what would become known as the Six-Day War.

For Lockwood and many other survivors, the anger is mixed with incredulity: that Israel would attack an important ally, then attribute the attack to a case of mistaken identity by Israeli pilots who had confused the U.S. Navy’s most distinctive ship with an Egyptian horse-cavalry transport that was half its size and had a dissimilar profile. And they’re also incredulous that, for years, their own government would reject their calls for a thorough investigation.

“They tried to lie their way out of it!” Lockwood shouts. “I don’t believe that for a minute! You just don’t shoot at a ship at sea without identifying it, making sure of your target!”

Four decades later, many of the more than two dozen Liberty survivors located and interviewed by the Tribune cannot talk about the attack without shouting or weeping.

Their anger has been stoked by the declassification of government documents and the recollections of former military personnel, including some quoted in this article for the first time, which strengthen doubts about the U.S. National Security Agency’s position that it never intercepted the communications of the attacking Israeli pilots — communications, according to those who remember seeing them, that showed the Israelis knew they were attacking an American naval vessel.

The documents also suggest that the U.S. government, anxious to spare Israel’s reputation and preserve its alliance with the U.S., closed the case with what even some of its participants now say was a hasty and seriously flawed investigation.

In declassifying the most recent and largest batch of materials last June 8, the 40th anniversary of the attack, the NSA, this country’s chief U.S. electronic-intelligence-gatherer and code-breaker, acknowledged that the attack had “become the center of considerable controversy and debate.” It was not the agency’s intention, it said, “to prove or disprove any one set of conclusions, many of which can be drawn from a thorough review of this material,” available at http://www.nsa.gov/liberty .

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, called the attack on the Liberty “a tragic and terrible accident, a case of mistaken identity, for which Israel has officially apologized.” Israel also paid reparations of $6.7 million to the injured survivors and the families of those killed in the attack, and another $6 million for the loss of the Liberty itself.

But for those who lost their sons and husbands, neither the Israelis’ apology nor the passing of time has lessened their grief.

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