The High Court of Justice rejected both leftist and rightist groups’ petitions regarding this week’s IDF flotilla raid on Thursday.
The hearing, which began late on Wednesday afternoon, involved six petitions. Three demanded information on the whereabouts of all or some of the passengers, all of whom had been brought to Ashdod. The other three asked the court to overrule Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein’s decision to halt the police investigation of Monday’s events on the Turkish passenger ship,
Mavi Marmara.
Court President Dorit Beinisch said she found no basis for interfering with the attorney-general’s deportation of the foreign activists taken into custody on the ships.
The court came out in support of the IDF’s actions on the
Mavi
Marmara, saying, “The soldiers were forced to respond in
order to defend their lives. Unfortunately, the action ended, as was
not to be expected, with the loss of lives. Nine people were killed and
soldiers and flotilla participants were wounded.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Weinstein informed the High Court that he had
accepted a recommendation from the security cabinet to allow all of the
passengers to leave the country.
“I reached this decision,” he told the court, “after I took into
consideration, on the one hand, the overall public interest in
enforcing the law, and, on the other hand, the recommendation of the
political echelon, which was based, among other things, on the decision
of the security cabinet of June 1, which called for the immediate
release of all the civilians who had arrived on the flotilla, and on
requests from foreign countries and international organizations.