Turkel Commission

The Turkel Commission (officially The Public Commission to Examine the Maritime Incident of 31 May 2010) was an inquiry set up by Israeli Government to investigate the Gaza flotilla raid, and the Blockade of Gaza. It was led by Israeli retired Supreme Court Judge Jacob Turkel. The other initial members of the commission were former president of the Technion and military expert, Amos Horev, and professor of international law, Shabtai Rosenne, who died in September 2010. The probe was overseen by two International observers: William David Trimble, former Leader of the Northern Irish Ulster Unionist Party and Northern Irish First Minister, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and Canadian former military judge Ken Watkin.

The report found that the blockade of Gaza was legal on the basis that human rights organizations have found that 60% of Gazans suffer from "'food insecurity' (i.e., the lack of physical and economic access to sustainable food sources), and not [from] 'starvation' (a deliberate deprivation of food, which is intended to weaken or annihilate the population)."^[1]

The report has been criticized for being inconsistent with human rights reports and for inadequate treatment of the principle of proportionality regarding the blockade of Gaza. Specifically, the report denies the existence of a humanitarian crisis in Gaza.^[2] The report has also been criticized for failing to reconcile its conclusions with the findings by Israeli doctors that all of the dead passengers suffered multiple bullet wounds and five were shot in the neck or head.^[3]

The first part of the report was published in January 2011, the second part, titled "Israel’s Mechanisms for Examining and Investigating Complaints and Claims of Violations of the Laws of Armed Conflict According to International Law" was published in 2013.