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Commando who killed six people on ship could get a medal

Staff sergeant credited with protecting three injured comrades

by macleans.ca on Friday, June 4, 2010 11:57am - 39 Comments

The Israeli commando responsible for killing six of the nine dead passengers aboard the aid flotilla destined for Gaza is up for a medal of valour for his efforts. Identified only as Staff Sergeant S, the soldier is credited with saving three injured comrades who’d been set upon by the passengers on the ship. Staff Sergeant S, who was the last of the commandos to board the ship, instructed fellow soldiers to form a perimeter around the injured, and shot back at passengers he says were firing at them with guns stripped from the soldiers who’d first boarded the aid convoy. “When I hit the deck, I was immediately attacked by people with bats, metal pipes and axes,” he said. “These were without a doubt terrorists. I could see the murderous rage in their eyes and that they were coming to kill us.”

The Times

Tags: Israel

Oliver

The way it's described he definitely deserves a medal for protecting his squad mate.
His comments however are so out of line, only a brainwashed IDF member could come up with something like that. And people wonder why the Israel/Palestine will never end….

Oliver

Israel/Palestine conflict

charles

I agree -hard line palestinions hell bent for murder were probably on that endeavour along with well meaning people.

Budster

Apparently you don't understand that those murdered were Turkish citizens of which one also had US citizenshjip. The issue is a blockade which by any standard of decency is collective punishment..

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

His comments however are so out of line, only a brainwashed IDF member could come up with something like that.

Oh? Were you there as an eyewitness to dispute his observation?
true north

Another well researched and thought out comment.

true north

My above comment was directed at Oliver…..

Oliver

I'm not claiming he wasn't scared out of his mind, I'm just saying that saying things like what he said is out of line and only helps reinforce the notion that the IDF are mindless killing machines.

true north

Reinforce who's notion that the IDF are mindless killing machines.? That's two ridiculous comments back to back, Try for Three maybe you will win a prize for most consistent…….

Hypocritics

Based on the description, I agree this guy deserves a medal.

It's hard to imagine but the situation would have probably got a lot worse, with a lot more people dead, if this commando hadn't killed those 6 hostage takers when he did.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Yes, after all, those terrorists had already managed to disarm some of the soldiers and apparantly killed.. uh.. wait.. none of the IDF forces were killed? So.. the "mob" managed to disarm a trained commando, something which I imagine can't be done unless you've got significant control of the person, and didn't kill him?

Huh. It's almost like they were simply trying to get these armed soldiers off of their ship.

Keith M

Or take the IDF commando hostage and turn him over to Hamas. What a feather in Hamas' cap to have an Israeli commando.

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/maggieblanco maggieblanco

He should get a medal, a really big important one too . . if he hadn't protected his mates those jihadis would have have beaten them to death.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Yeah! Like all the other commandos they beat to death after taking their weapons.. how many was that again?

Oh right. None.
Zero.
Not a single one.

So this soldier, the last one down, apparantly, protected his previously disarmed mates from certain death, even though while he was in the helicopter and they were disarmed, this "certain death" didn't seem to occur.

Keith M

The Jihadist love to make snuf films, they would want the soldiers alive so they kill them at a later time.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Which is why they threw some of them overboard right? Easier to put them overboard and come back and pick them up later? Is this what you're suggesting they were doing?

Griffon1

Well done Staff Sergeant.
http://intensedebate.com/people/citizen_CA citizen_CA

Peaceful humanitarian activists!? Whatever! Good for Sergeant S for recognizing the danger.
Charliewack

Well done, you cannot propose to be a peacefull humanitarian and then proceed to beat the cr@p out of someone. Still serving Queen and Country after 25 years…You're welcome.

http://intensedebate.com/people/theintellectual theintellectual

very true. aide workers would not have fought back with such tenaciousness and violence.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

Because aide workers are pussies?

http://intensedebate.com/people/Fred_Moro Fred Moro

Were the medals awarded for the accurate close shooting abilities of the IDF forces?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/gaza-… http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/04/gaza-…
dave mcmac

israel is a nation out of control…….
No NDP

He isn't of the Richard Colvin school of thought which teaches to take one for the enemy before your comrades.
No Lefty

Turkey used the entrapmant concept quite well. The flotilla was never about aid. It was all about breaking the blocade, legal by the International rules of the sea, so that shipments of arms could easily reach Hamas. And lefty seems very comfortable with this.

Jews have had it tough, and now they face a new coalition; Turks, jihadists, Iranians, lefty and Jimmy Carter.
http://intensedebate.com/profiles/harebell harebell

It's hard for me to imagine a more poorly planned and executed military mission, especially in the light of subsequent ops dealing with the Rachel Corrie.
1: Using helicopters at night and appearing on deck in ones and twos is never good.
2: The only firearms brought to the party were those furnished by the boarders.
3: Doing all this in international waters is even less smart.
The whole op was a nightmare and quite rightly identifies the IDF as the bad guys.Bad in terms of military competence and also in terms of PR.
The S Sgt responded to a situation that his troops had created. After monumentally messing up, he then had to try and rescue his troops from the situation he found himself in.
I've no idea about the medal but there should be some serious courts marshalls convened pretty damn soon to deal with the crass stupidity in the higher echelons of the IDF and the Israeli gov. Who ever approved and planned this op need to be removed from whatever positions of authority they inhabit.
Canada deals with generals who have affairs and fire their weapons negligently correctly. The Israelis need to do likewise when command demonstrates stupidity at this level.

Minotaure

Please, HareBell, enlighten us with your accuit knowledge of military strategy and tactics and tell us who you would have run this op differently…

Admitedly, I too would have chosen to do some things differently. However, interception in international waters of a ship which has declared numerous times that it is Gaza bound despite warnings that a lawfull blocade is in effect and ordered not to approach the coast and to deviate from its course to the nearest available open port is 100% legal. Any two-bit lawyer or law professor who tries to tell you otherwise in whole-heartedly disengenuous at best.

So let's have it: how should this op have been planned/executed?

Fred Moro

They could have used some smoke/flash/gas grenades before sending them down there. Israeli embedded journalist Ron Ben Yishai seems to see it as one of two mistakes the Israeli forces made, quoted from a BBC news report from midweek, "they underestimated the extent of the opposition and they failed to quell it from above, by using tear-gas and stun grenades before they landed."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/1020…
harebell

Hi Mino
Not too sure you meant accuit.
Not too sure about your grasp of the legal niceties either. A defence could be made that they were only going to go to the 3 mile limit, but I guess now we'll never know.. Remember the little ditty about assuming stuff.
But the op itself was terribly planned and executed and that speaks volumes about the command structure of the IDF. The term cowboy springs to mind.
Also my sympathy was with the front line folks put in an impossible situation by those who haven't got a clue.
Fred adds something to the op as it was originally planned, but I'd have approached via boat first and used lots of lights and radio comms. Then nobody could falsely claim that they were surprised. Oh yes this sounds a little like what happened with the MV R Corrie and look what happened there. That's right it all went without loss of life.
You see Mino it's not acute knowledge of anything except knowing how to reduce tension.
The original mission was doomed to failure from the start on either a military level or a PR level and one doesn't have to be the Duke of Wellington to understand that.

Minotaure

You obviously haven't seen all the video recordings! The Israeli Navy did give them
numerous warnings over the radio, and Navy boats were dispatched to intercept the flotilla.
Judge for yourself: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKOmLP4yHb4
Notice the response: "Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza."

How can you compare the Mavi Marmara, a boat full of hundreds of Turkish islamist militants who were
prepared to put up a fight to the Rachel Corrie which had no more than 20 peacefull Irish activists on board?

Here's a video of the Mavi Marmara "activists" chanting religious
war songs: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3L7OV414Kk
Notice that the lady at the end of the video says: "Right now, we
face one of two happy endings: Either Martyrdom or reaching Gaza."
These were NOT by any means humanitarian workers or peacefull activists.

I can't comment on the IDF's leadership's failures as
I don't know much about military command structure.

Btw, I meant "acute" knowledge in my earlier post.

http://intensedebate.com/profiles/harebell harebell

I wasn't comparing the occupants of the vessels I was comparing the methods of dealing with them. My intuition would tell me that if somebody is going to try and run a blockade, then they are pretty motivated folk. Throw two sides with competing religious beliefs into the mix and you can pretty much guarantee it. To not expect animosity was a huge oversight that was illustrated by the piecemeal descent of troops from the helicopters making them a viable target even though they were armed.

The singing of sectarian and hateful songs is something that the military and police in many states have had to put up with in carrying out their tasks. I would have expected the IDF to be well used to this by now. N Ireland and even soccer games are examples.

The World's Navies deals with pirates and drug smugglers who bring their own weapons to the scene, all the time; and manage to do so from boats with support in the air. Illuminating the whole scene also adds clarity and focus to the occasion and they failed to do this as well.

This operation was badly planned and it looked to me like the IDF thought it would be a cakewalk or somebody was setting up a really bad situation. My own belief is that they didn't take the whole thing seriously enough and things went downhill rapidly, resulting in the deadly situation we witnessed.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

What makes it lawful? Israel's say so?

Hey, if Iran declares their blockading Israel, does that make it lawful?

Minotaure

My Master's in International Law from a prestigious French university says so.
But for the sake of argument, let's analyze the situation and discuss the applicable law.

Israel and Hamas are engaged in hostilities. I think everyone can agree on that. When the state which exercises de facto sovereinty declares an area under its control an area of hostilities and repeatedly warns that a blocade is in effect, that state may board any ship approaching the designated area EVEN IF it is in international waters, so long as there are clear indications that the ship will attempt to run the blocade (which the flotilla made very clear many, many times including when it was intercepted).

The Turcs are playing a very dangerous game, by any standard.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

So Iran COULD declare they're blockading Israel and you'd be perfectly fine with that. Or are you saying there's no hostilies between the two?

And someone who has a Masters would probably know better than to try to use an argument from authority fallacy.. especially via an anonymous forum.
Minotaure

Last I checked, there are no rockets flying across from Iran. Iran and Syria use proxies such as Hamas and Hezbollah to do their dirty work. Now Turkey seems to be using "humanitarian organisations" to achieve political aims.

Feel free to keep making disengenuous comments about me or my arguments.
Let me know when you have anything serious and valuable to contribute.

Minotaure

It takes a tremendous amount of courage to drop down from a helicopter
at night right into a mob of angry muslim militants armed with metal rods,
knives and hand guns.

To those brave soldiers serving their country, risking their safety and
lives for the benefit of civilians, I say kudos, godspeed and yasher koah.
Budster

Sure, why not? Most of the world is already outraged by the injustices perpetrated on the Palestinians every day by the Israel government so why not add to it. And while they're at it why not give Netanyahu and the ever so intelligent gang of morons who planned this stupid raid? I wonder why Israel waited to board the Rachel Corrie today inside the its declared blockade instead of in international waters? Maybe even the two-bit lawyers aren't to sure about legality of Monday's assualts.
By the way the pistols were taken from the Israelis. You know those pistols that Netanyahu claimed they didn't have when they propelled onto the ship. It must be that Bibi didn't know that sidearms which the IDF confirmed they had are pistols.

Minotaure

No soldiers would go into a hostile situation like that
without their sidearms. They're brave, not suicidal.

Please watch the following videos:

The first video shows that the Mavi Marmara was duly warned not to continue on its course and
responed "Negative, negative. Our destination is Gaza." That's clear intent to run to blocade. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKOmLP4yHb4

The second video shows militants on the Mavi Marmara chating religious war songs and one
lady saying "Right now, we face one of two happy endings: Either Martyrdom or reaching Gaza." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3L7OV414Kk

Say what you will. Given the circumstances,
the IDF did its best to protect Israeli civilians.

sickoftheleft

I'm no expert on this subject but it seems to me that they were provoking Israel, and that they wanted something like this to happen to make Israel look bad.