Gaza.

Where is the missing footage?

By now the available video footage of the attack by Israeli naval and army forces has been played over and over again, and we are familiar with the claim and counter-claim of each side.

The activists - including a member of the Israeli Parliament, Haneen Zuabi -  say that the Israelis were the first to attack and that they defended themselves against live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades from the start of the assault on the Mavi Marmara, and that this culminated in what one activist called a “lake of blood”. On the other side of the divide, the Israelis claim that there was a pre-meditated attack upon them which forced them to use live ammunition resulting in the death of 9 activists.

How to decide which side is telling the truth? Well. In theory, this should be very easy.

What is clear is that the IDF were using sophisticated night cameras which were tracking the every movement of their soldiers.  Some of the footage - roughly 2 minutes worth - has been released and is being used to frame the Israeli defence.

But where is the rest of the footage?

Israel has released footage apparently taken from the ships own cameras of activists preparing to repel the IDF attack.  In fairness to Israel, and as hard as it is to watch, it does show activists preparing to defend themselves with slingshots, metal rods and broken bottles.  Co-incidently, the activists in the video number about 10 or 11. Did these people make up a large amount of those who were shot dead?

And what of the start of the mission? The IDF can prove that it did not attack the ship with live ammunition before storming the ship - as the activists claim - if it shows us the beginning of its own footage.  What happened before the IDF soldiers slid down the ropes, and why will Israel not show this us?

9 people were shot dead. 2 IDF soldiers lost their pistols and these pistols were apparently turned on the IDF and the clips emptied of live ammunition as the activists fired them at the attacking IDF. But none of this has been seen on the available footage to date.

Was none of it caught on film?

The IDF has released some film which purports to prove that the IDF were receiving live fire, but which does nothing of the sort.  It details a radio exchange between two soldiers who think they are taking live fire “from below”.  It is unclear if the vantage point of the camera is on the helicopter or on the ship, either way,  This proves that the IDF had more active cameras at the time of the attack than the one or two night vision cameras from which we have already seen footage.

Israel has also released high quality edited video footage which could really only have come from activists videoing from on board the Mavi Marmara. This footage backs up activist claims that hoses were used against the attacking forces, but also proves that the attacking forces were themselves attacked with some form of grenade*, a box of plates, metal rods and chains.

Presumably the pistols with live ammunition were taken from the soldiers who initially dropped onto the top deck of the ship and who were quickly disarmed and admittedly beaten by activists, but this version of events reveals some inconsistencies in the current Israeli narrative:

• The available Israeli footage does not show anybody taking a gun from an IDF soldier in the initial attack, so when were the guns taken?
• The available footage does not show anybody firing a gun at the IDF, so when were the guns fired?
• The available footage does not show the IDF shooting any of the activists with live ammunition so when where they shot?
• 2 guns were taken, if, just for a moment, we assume that it is OK to shoot at civilians armed with guns with deliberately lethal force, is it that 9 civilians shared 2 guns, or were 7 other civilians shot dead for other reasons?

In fact, the only available footage from Israel shows the IDF struggling to take control of the ship, but not how they actually succeeded in doing so. Although the live activist feed relays the sound of somebody addressing the passengers informing them that they have lost control of the ship to the Israelis and that everybody should go below deck and sit down.

It is unconscionable that days after the events, we are still no clearer on who exactly died and in what circumstances - though we are told that they are mostly Turkish activists. Were they male? Female? Old? Young? Armed with guns or with iron rods or knives or bare hands or simply cowering in a corner?

Israel has the power to answer all its critics by simply releasing un-edited footage of the operation they conducted from beginning to end in its entirety. This would include all its own footage, all footage confiscated from the activists, and all the footage taken from the ships cameras.

Don’t expect to see it anytime soon.

* UPDATE 3 June 2010: Having looked at the footage again, it is possible that the activists were actually tossing back a grenade that the attacking soldiers had themselves thrown on board. Israel can clear this up by releasing the entire footage.