Israel deports Jewish boat activists

ASHDOD, Israel (AFP) – Three Jewish activists who tried to bust Israel's blockade on Gaza were on their way out of Israel on Tuesday night and a fourth was awaiting deportation, their lawyer said.

Israeli warships on Tuesday intercepted the boat named "Irene" 20 nautical miles off the coast of the Gaza Strip, and took it the port of Ashdod in southern Israel.

Attorney Smadar Ben-Natan said "two English and an American" were at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport awaiting flights and the other, a woman, was being kept in custody overnight.

"We shall only be able to see her tomorrow," she told AFP, without identifying the foreigners or saying why one was still being detained.

She said five Israeli nationals who sailed with the four foreigners on the Irene had been released without being charged pending further inquiries.

Organisers Jews for Justice for Palestinians listed on their website Briton Glyn Secker as the vessel's captain and a member of its executive committee and named US peace activist Lillian Rosengarten as one of the passengers.

Photographer Vish Vishvanath's nationality is not given but his own website describes him as London-based.

The fourth foreigner is listed as German nurse Edith Lutz.

Ben-Natan said one of the Israelis, former combat pilot Yonatan Shapira, had been subdued with a stun gun as he passively resisted attempts to separate him from his brother Itamar after the Israeli navy boarded the British-flagged catamaran.

"An Israeli naval officer gave him an electric shock," she said. "He wasn't resisting arrest, (the brothers) were hugging one another so they wouldn't be separated."

A statement from the organisers said Yonatan had recovered from the shock and was in good health, as was 82-year-old Holocaust survivor Reuven Moskovitz, an Israeli with a heart condition.

The military said "there was no violence of any sort" during the operation.

Army footage of the incident filmed from the air showed two navy corvettes coming alongside the boat, and commandos scrambling on board and taking control. There were no signs of violence.

Describing the boat's attempt to reach Gaza as a "provocation," the military said the captain had ignored repeated warnings and had entered a closed naval zone, prompting the interception.

Organisers confirmed the activists had surrendered without a struggle.

Also on Tuesday, Irish Nobel laureate and peace activist Mairead Maguire was prevented from entering Israel because of her participation in an earlier attempt to run the blockade on Gaza, her lawyer said.

Attorney Fatmeh el-Ajou told AFP that she had filed a court appeal against the ban and her client was still in detention late on Tuesday awaiting the outcome.

Should the court rule against her, Maguire was likely to be expelled early on Wednesday morning, the lawyer said.

The Irene carried a small, token cargo of aid, including children's toys, musical instruments, textbooks, fishing nets and prosthetic limbs.

The Israeli military said that following a security check the load, which a spokeswoman said amounted to "a few bags" would be allowed to enter the Gaza Strip by land.

In May, Israeli forces intercepted a six-ship flotilla heading for Gaza but the raid went badly wrong and nine Turkish activists -- including one with US citizenship -- were killed, prompting a wave of international condemnation.

Israel said its troops resorted to force only after they were attacked while rappelling onto the deck of the lead ship. Pro-Palestinian activists on board said the soldiers opened fire as soon as they landed.

Israel and Egypt sealed Gaza's borders after militants there captured an Israeli soldier in June 2006 and tightened the blockade a year later when the Islamist Hamas movement seized power, allowing in only humanitarian aid.

Israel eased the closures to allow in all purely civilian goods in the aftermath of the deadly flotilla raid, but still restricts dual-use items such as construction materials that could be used to build militant fortifications.

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