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Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into
its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the
bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were
peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.

Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30
times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to
the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which
carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.

The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot
four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as
Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from
less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg
and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of
the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back,
said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.

The findings emerged as more survivors gave their accounts of the
raids. Ismail Patel, the chairman of Leicester-based pro-Palestinian
group Friends of al-Aqsa, who returned to Britain today, told how he
witnessed some of the fatal shootings and claimed that Israel had
operated a "shoot to kill policy".

He calculated that during the bloodiest part of the assault, Israeli
commandos shot one person every minute. One man was fatally shot in
the back of the head just two feet in front him and another was shot
once between the eyes. He added that as well as the fatally wounded,
48 others were suffering from gunshot wounds and six activists
remained missing, suggesting the death toll may increase.

The new information about the manner and intensity of the killings
undermines Israel's insistence that its soldiers opened fire only in
self defence and in response to attacks by the activists.

"Given the very disturbing evidence which contradicts the line from
the Israeli media and suggests that Israelis have been very selective
in the way they have addressed this, there is now an overwhelming need
for an international inquiry," said Andrew Slaughter MP, a member of
the all party group on Britain and Palestine.

Israel said tonight the number of bullets found in the bodies did not
alter the fact that the soldiers were acting in self defence. "The
only situation when a soldier shot was when it was a clearly a life-
threatening situation," said a spokesman for the Israeli embassy in
London. "Pulling the trigger quickly can result in a few bullets being
in the same body, but does not change the fact they were in a life-
threatening situation."

Protesters from across the country will tomorrow march from Downing
Street to the Israeli embassy to call for Israel to be held to account
for its actions.

Earlier this week, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said the
government would call for an inquiry under international auspices if
Israel refuses to establish an independent inquiry, including an
international presence.

The autopsy results were released as the last of the Turkish victims
was buried.

Dr Haluk Ince, the chairman of the council of forensic medicine in
Istanbul, said that in only one case was there a single bullet wound,
to the forehead from a distant shot, while every other victim suffered
multiple wounds. "All [the bullets] were intact. This is important in
a forensic context. When a bullet strikes another place it comes into
the body deformed. If it directly comes into the body, the bullet is
all intact."

He added that all but one of the bullets retrieved from the bodies
came from 9mm rounds. Of the other round, he said: "It was the first
time we have seen this kind of material used in firearms. It was just
a container including many types of pellets usually used in shotguns.
It penetrated the head region in the temple and we found it intact in
the brain."

An unnamed Israeli commando, who purportedly led the raid on the Mavi
Marmara, today told Israeli news website Ynet News that he shot at a
protester who approached him with a knife. "I was in front of a number
of people with knives and clubs," he said. "I cocked my weapon when I
saw that one was coming towards me with a knife drawn and I fired
once. Then another 20 people came at me from all directions and threw
me down to the deck below …

"We knew they were peace activists. Though they wanted to break the
Gaza blockade, we thought we'd encounter passive resistance, perhaps
verbal resistance – we didn't expect this. Everyone wanted to kill us.
We encountered terrorists who wanted to kill us and we did everything
we could to prevent unnecessary injury."

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