Gaza City, June 2 (IANS/AKI) Israel Wednesday began deporting scores of foreign activists, arrested after a deadly attack on a Gaza-bound humanitarian aid flotilla, following the UN’s appeal for their immediate release.
Around 250 activists, who have so far been deported – 120 of them reportedly Algerian and Indonesian – were taken to Jordan. Hundreds more, most of them Turkish, were due to be deported from Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv.
Ten activists – nine of them Turkish – were killed when Israeli naval commandos boarded the six vessels in the convoy early Monday. Dozens were wounded and over 600 were detained and taken to Israeli prisons.
Israel has been widely condemned for the raids and the UN is expected to set up an inquiry into the incident.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has appealed for the immediate release of those arrested after the raid.
‘We reiterate our call to all concerned to act with a sense of care and responsibility and for a satisfactory resolution and the United Nations has raised its concerns about this with international partners and with Israeli authorities and all parties should act in accordance with international law and avoid provocations at this sensitive time,’ UN spokesperson Marie Okabe said in New York.
Meanwhile, a few dozen Israeli diplomat families in the Turkish cities of Ankara and Istanbul were instructed to return to Israel Tuesday after the raid provoked a crisis in Israel-Turkey relations. Reports from Israel said some have already returned and others were expected to arrive Wednesday.
–IANS/AKI
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