‘We didn’t think they would massacre them’

MAURA Lane was anxiously watching the television at 5am when the Cork woman first realised that a flotilla of humanitarian aid vessels, with her son Fintan, on board was under attack from Israeli commandos.

“I just felt dismay, disbelief, totally appalled when I saw what was happening,” she said yesterday. Maura had nervously decided to watch the news as the ships made their way towards the 20-nautical mile exclusion zone around Gaza declared by the Israeli military.

Speaking from her home in the Togher Road area yesterday she said: “This was totally humanitarian aid, the only thing we thought might happen, the worst we thought might happen, would be that they would prevent them from carrying the aid to Gaza, badly needed aid.... we didn’t think they would go in like that and massacre them.