Deportation of Pacifists Backing Gaza Ends

Deportation of Pacifists Backing Gaza Ends        Tel Aviv, Jun 3. -Israel concluded on Thursday the deportation of some 700 pacifists who were brutally repressed on board of a flotilla in solidarity with Gaza, but maintains in prison four Palestinian-Israeli activists.

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Hundreds of people detained in ships and diverted to Israel have been released for deportation, some of them were transferred to the Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv, and the rest to the border with Jordan, Israel's prison system spokesman Yron Zamir stated.

The pacifists, nine of which were killed as a result of the attack to the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara, were taken by force to the southern port locality of Ashdod, and submitted to harassment, beating and intimidations, victims stated.

After Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government authorization, about 527 activists, as well as seven seriously wounded, were transferred on Wednesday night in Turkish airplanes to Ankara, where they were welcomed as heroes.

One of the aircrafts also transferred coffins with the bodies of nine members of the Liberty flotilla who died as a result of fires from Israeli soldiers.

Israel's Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein stated that the decision to release them without trying for the alleged illegal entry to the Israeli State was taken after he understood that "to keep them here would do more harm than good to the country's vital interests."

About 124 members of the caravan, who transferred 10,000 tons of food, medicines and construction materials to Gaza, most of them from Arab countries, were expelled on June 2 to Jordan through the bordering King Hussein Bridge. (Prensa Latina)