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"Under darkness of night, Israeli commandos dropped from helicopters onto the Turkish passenger ship, Mavi Marmara, and began to shoot the moment their feet hit the deck," the Free Gaza group said in a statement.
The passengers "were waving white flags not clubs," it said.
Only limited footage of the pre-dawn confrontation has been broadcast as communications with the six ships participating in the flotilla appeared to have been scrambled during the operation, which the military said left nine passengers dead.
Three choppers and several commando boats approached the flotilla at about 4:00 am (0100 GMT), a senior military official said.
An Israeli commando said he and others were attacked as soon as they hit the deck after descending from a helicopter. "They beat us up with metal sticks and knives," he said, adding: "There was live fire at some point against us."
Some of the soldiers were tossed from the top deck to the lower deck by the activists and then jumped in the water to save themselves, he said.
He said about 30 activists, all speaking Arabic, had carried out the attack.
"This was a voyage of terror," a senior military official said of the "Freedom Flotilla."
The commando operation took less than two hours.
In the images posted on the Internet and broadcast on several television channels including the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera network, bandaged men can be seen lying on stretchers.
The shaky film shows complete chaos aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara.
Indications are that most if not all of those killed were aboard the Marmara, which carried the majority of the more than 700 pro-Palestinian activists who hoped to make their way towards the Gaza Strip.
Armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said the situation aboard the large ferry, owned by the IHH Islamic charity, was different from that on the other five ships.
"There was extreme violence from the moment that our forces reached the ship. It was premeditated and included weapons, iron bars, knives and at a certain stage firearms, perhaps in some cases weapons that were snatched from soldiers," he said.
Media reported that the commandos had been told to avoid violence and were armed with riot-control paintball guns, being told to use their handguns only under extreme circumstances.
Greta Berlin, one of the land-based coordinators of the flotilla, said the last message received before the raid said: "All is calm, the Israeli warships are on our bow, let's sleep."
Then, a message posted on Twitter by the pro-Palestinian activists said the Israeli military had made contact. "Intervention is imminent," a message from aboard the Challenger 1 passenger vessel said.
Next came news from the Mavi Marmara, reporting two people were killed. Later reports indicated that 19 activists had died.
The Sfendoni and another ship could be seen being towed under military escort to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod where authorities have set up special facilities to process the detained activists. The other ships were expected to follow.
As the first ships docked, about 100 Israeli activists gathered on an adjacent beach protesting against the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since the Islamist Hamas movement's seizure of the Palestinian territory in 2007.
About a dozen consular officials waited outside the port but were not allowed access to the facilities or given any information about detained nationals.
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The passengers "were waving white flags not clubs," it said.
Only limited footage of the pre-dawn confrontation has been broadcast as communications with the six ships participating in the flotilla appeared to have been scrambled during the operation, which the military said left nine passengers dead.
Three choppers and several commando boats approached the flotilla at about 4:00 am (0100 GMT), a senior military official said.
An Israeli commando said he and others were attacked as soon as they hit the deck after descending from a helicopter. "They beat us up with metal sticks and knives," he said, adding: "There was live fire at some point against us."
Some of the soldiers were tossed from the top deck to the lower deck by the activists and then jumped in the water to save themselves, he said.
He said about 30 activists, all speaking Arabic, had carried out the attack.
"This was a voyage of terror," a senior military official said of the "Freedom Flotilla."
The commando operation took less than two hours.
In the images posted on the Internet and broadcast on several television channels including the pan-Arab Al-Jazeera network, bandaged men can be seen lying on stretchers.
The shaky film shows complete chaos aboard the Turkish ship Mavi Marmara.
Indications are that most if not all of those killed were aboard the Marmara, which carried the majority of the more than 700 pro-Palestinian activists who hoped to make their way towards the Gaza Strip.
Armed forces chief of staff Lieutenant General Gabi Ashkenazi said the situation aboard the large ferry, owned by the IHH Islamic charity, was different from that on the other five ships.
"There was extreme violence from the moment that our forces reached the ship. It was premeditated and included weapons, iron bars, knives and at a certain stage firearms, perhaps in some cases weapons that were snatched from soldiers," he said.
Media reported that the commandos had been told to avoid violence and were armed with riot-control paintball guns, being told to use their handguns only under extreme circumstances.
Greta Berlin, one of the land-based coordinators of the flotilla, said the last message received before the raid said: "All is calm, the Israeli warships are on our bow, let's sleep."
Then, a message posted on Twitter by the pro-Palestinian activists said the Israeli military had made contact. "Intervention is imminent," a message from aboard the Challenger 1 passenger vessel said.
Next came news from the Mavi Marmara, reporting two people were killed. Later reports indicated that 19 activists had died.
The Sfendoni and another ship could be seen being towed under military escort to the southern Israeli port of Ashdod where authorities have set up special facilities to process the detained activists. The other ships were expected to follow.
As the first ships docked, about 100 Israeli activists gathered on an adjacent beach protesting against the blockade Israel has imposed on Gaza since the Islamist Hamas movement's seizure of the Palestinian territory in 2007.
About a dozen consular officials waited outside the port but were not allowed access to the facilities or given any information about detained nationals.
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