That was no Ghandi like crowd of peaceniks greeting the Israeli Defense Forces as they boarded the Marmara last week.

A hardcore of 40 Turkish jihadis on board the Mavi Marmara was responsible for the violence that led to nine deaths and dozens of injuries on the flotilla taking aid to Gaza, the Israeli government claimed today. The allegation came as Turkish newspapers reported that three of the four Turks killed in the onslaught had declared their readiness to become martyrs. "I am going to be a martyr. I dreamed about it," Ali Haider Banjinin, 39, from Kurdistan, told his family before leaving to join the flotilla, according to one report.

According to Reuters, "the Istanbul-based Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief (IHH) is an Islamic charity group that was formed to provide aid to Bosnian Muslims in the mid-1990s. It has been involved in aid missions in Pakistan, Ethiopia, Lebanon, Indonesia, Iraq, Palestinian territories and other places, according to Turkish media." ^[3] The organisation brings aid to all countries in Africa as well as Latin America and Europe like Bosnia Herzogovina, Bulgaria, Albania. The Daily Telegraph described the IHH as "a radical Islamist group masquerading as a humanitarian agency." It added that Israel accuses the organization of "overtly supporting Hamas, but stated that these "claims remain controversial."