City activist attends funerals of nine murdered by Israelis

AN EDINBURGH activist seized in the Gaza aid flotilla is in Turkey today attending the funerals of the nine people who were massacred by Israeli troops.

Friends said Theresa McDermott called her partner Jim Burns from the airport in Istanbul yesterday to tell him she was safe.

Free Gaza Scotland co-ordinator Carl Abernethy said: "We had expected her home today but she said she's going to stay for the funerals of the nine people who were killed, which are expected to take place today.

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"Although we do not yet know the identities of the nine people who were killed, they are likely to be Muslim and custom dictates that they are buried on the day of death or at the nearest possible opportunity.

"We expect her to fly home after that."

The IHH charity says they are having difficulty identifying five of the bodies. Four of them have been officially confirmed to be Turks.

There were unfounded fears that Ms McDermott had joined the MV Rachel Corrie, the Irish boat that was due to enter Gazan waters this morning.

Israel has said it will not bow to international pressure to let the boat through the blockade.

Mr Abernethy said: "I've just heard that the MV Rachel Corrie is heading for Gaza now and has formed a another convoy with three ships from Malaysia carrying humanitarian aid."

News that Ms McDermott is safe and well signals the end of a tense few days for friends who feared for her safety when the nine activists were killed by Israeli troops on the Gaza aid flotilla on Monday.

The boat she was travelling on, the Challenger 2, was taken without a fight and Ms McDermott was taken to Beersheeba Prison in Israel pending deportation.

One of the first activists to make it back from Israel, Hasan Nowarah from Bearsden, said he believed Ms McDermott, a postal worker from Pilrig, had been badly beaten up.

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And today Ms McDermott's sister Winnie Chambers said this was "very probably true".

She said: "She managed to phone both our brother and her partner Jim at about 3.30am this morning.

"She said she was treated very roughly at the airport. The British consulate official, who followed the convoy buses into the airport, wasn't allowed in to go with them, which is just unacceptable.

"She won't elaborate on her rough treatment until she gets home. Her mobile was taken off her so her only point of contact is the costly international phones.

"She did say that following the rough treatment they had a very long wait at the airport, and then a reasonably long flight to Istanbul so she had been awake for 24 hours and she was very tired.

"She will be okay though. She's very tough.

"She's going to stay in Istanbul for the funerals of the nine people that were killed, and the make her way home somehow after that.

"Our brother has contacted Theresa's MP Mark Lazarowicz to make him aware of her rough treatement at the hands of the Israelis, as it's totally unacceptable.

"Despite everything she's going to be sick that she's not on the MV Rachel Corrie. No matter what they do to her she will keep going back."

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Free Gaza organisers in Cyprus will also be relieved to hear that Ms McDermott was safe, after their lawyer failed to track her down in the prison amid fears she had been hospitalised.

And Spokeswoman Greta Berlin said Ms McDermott had been resisting deportation in solidarity with four Palestinian and Israeli nationals who are being held in prison.

Israel today dropped plans to prosecute the activists to limit diplomatic damage.

Meanwhile, it has been claimed that IHH had "clear" links to terror groups.

However, IHH denies ties to radical groups and it is not among 45 groups listed as terrorists by the US.

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