LF: USS Liberty Survivor Aboard Gaza Flotilla

One of the Americans taken into custody by Israeli forces that stormed and took over several Gaza-bound ships in the Mediterranean Sea on the night of May 31 was a survivor of the 1967 Israeli attack on the U.S. intelligence ship Liberty.

Joseph Meadors, who was a signalman aboard the USS Liberty, took part in the flotilla in part to refocus attention on Israel's attack on Liberty, according to James Ennes, another survivor of the June 8, 1967 attack. Ennis, author of Assault on the Liberty, told Military.com in an email that Meadors' wife learned today that he has since been released and on his way back to their home in Corpus Christi, Texas.

"It was partly a genuine effort to bring medical and building supplies to the Palestinians," Ennes said. "And to a large measure to get more public understanding of what happened to our ship." Ennes and other survivors of the 1967 attack have long claimed that Israeli forces shot up the ship's lifeboats. They say it was only the Israelis' mistaken belief that U.S. Navy aircraft were en route to rescue the ship that the attack was halted.

Meadors was among a group of international blockade opponents on the Greek-flagged ship Sfendoni when Israel intercepted it and five other ships. The Sfendoni and four other vessels were taken without incident by the Israelis, but violence erupted aboard the sixth ship, the Mavi Marmara, that left about 16 activists dead and several Israelis injured.

A memorial service for the USS Liberty was to be held aboard the Spendoni, with Meadors presiding over it, according to the Free Gaza Movement , which organized the flotilla. Military.com was unable to learn if the service took place.

The planned service was not the first time that the Free Gaza Movement, the organization that organized the flotilla, invoked the memory of the USS Liberty in its bid to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. A year ago one of two ships attempting to deliver aid to Gaza was named Liberty in honor of the Navy ship, though no member of the crew was aboard her.

Those ships were taken by Israel, as well.

The latest attempt to break the blockade was made up of seven ships, though only six were headed toward Gaza when they were intercepted. Two, the Challenger I and Challenger II, were American-flagged vessels. Two were registered in Greece and flying the Greek flag. One was registered in Ireland and the other was registered in Turkey. The seventh ship, which was delayed but is currently headed to Gaza, is also registered in Ireland. It is named for Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli bulldozer as she attempted to halt the destruction of Palestinian homes in Gaza in 2003.

The Israeli government said its commandos opened fire after activists attacked them as they rappelled onto the ship from helicopters.

In a statement posted on the website of its embassy in Washington, Israel said the violence against its commandos was preplanned, and said it found a weapons cache aboard the ship. The weapons, according to the embassy statement, included knives, slingshots, rocks, smoke bombs, metal rods, improvised sharp metal objects, sticks and clubs, hammers, firebombs and gas masks.

According to the embassy the gas masks were on hand in the event the Israeli forces fired gas at the activists as they violently attacked the soldiers.

"These weapons were used against Israeli Navy personnel as they attempted to board the ship," the embassy said.

The blockade of Gaza has been in effect almost continuously since 2007, when voters there elected the Hamas party into leadership.

Ennes told Military.com that Meadors was well aware of the risks of taking part in the Gaza flotilla, based on his experience in 1967. Ennis said Meadors knew there was a "great likelihood that this band of lunatics [the Israelis] might have killed everyone in the flotilla without hesitation or remorse."

Israeli naval and air forces torpedoed, bombed and strafed Liberty. Israel, then at war with several Arab countries, claimed it mistook the American ship for an Egyptian vessel. Liberty survivors and others, including a former head of the CIA and a Navy JAG officer who advised the Navy board of inquiry that investigated the attack, claimed the attack was deliberate.

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