The IDF delayed the release of footage from the Navy´s takeover of the Mavi Marmara Turkish passenger ship due to concern that images of commandos being beaten by the would damage the elite unit´s reputation,State Comptroller Micha Lindenstrauss revealed Wednesday in his report on the 2010 flotilla.

The comptroller´s conclusion is basically a rejection of the IDF´s claim that a helicopter - allocated to bring the video footage from the sea - was diverted to evacuate wounded instead and therefore the release of the video was delayed.

"Technical problems were not the only reasons that the release of the video was delayed," Lindenstrauss wrote.

A day after the flotilla, The Jerusalem Post revealed that the IDF had intentionally delayed the release of the video footage due to disagreements with the Foreign Ministry.

The footage was released at around 3 p.m., close to 10 hours after the takeover of the Mavi Marmara, where the clashes took place and nine activists were killed. The takeover of the ship – which began at 4:30 a.m. – was completed by around 7 a.m.

One government official told The Post at the time that the footage was already available at the IDF’s underground central command-and- control center – called the Bor (the Pit) – located in the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

Lindenstrauss backed up the official´s claims. He revealed testimony from chief of staff at the time of the operation Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gabi Ashkenazi who testified that he watched the video in "real time" in Tel Aviv and "I debated whether to release it." In the end, Ashkenazi said that he decided to release the footage "to tell our story and show that the soldiers were really in danger."

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the comptroller that the decision to delay the release of the footage was made to "spare the public the embarrassment and humiliation" of seeing the Navy commandos beaten by the passengers.

The comptroller quoted Yigal Caspi, a Foreign Ministry deputy director general, who claimed that the IDF refused to release the footage or even a statement about the wounded soldiers. Once the IDF decided to release the information, Caspi claimed, "it was too late."

"The fact that Israel did not immediately release the information about the attack and wounding of our the commandos was a critical blow to our ability to explain from the beginning why the soldiers used live fire to protect themselves," Caspi said.

Lindenstrauss wrote in his report that the IDF´s calculations were also fueled by a misunderstanding of the importance of the international media. He called on the Foreign Ministry, the Prime Minister´s Office and the IDF Spokesman´s Office to clarify the division of responsibilities in handling the media in such cases.

"Alongside some improvements in recent years, the flotilla incident shows that there still are problems and some have even increased and have not yet been corrected," Lindenstrauss wrote in his report.

Kadima MK Nachman Shai, a former IDF Spokesman who has a doctorate in public diplomacy, said Wednesday that the footage should have come out earlier and that the decision to delay its release contributed to the breakdown in ties with Turkey following the flotilla.

"Morale of soldiers and the public is a consideration but I think that opposite this is what we saw happen later in the breakdown in ties with Turkey and other countries," Shai said. "This should have overcome the morale considerations since without the footage it would have been extremely difficult to explain why people were killed on the ship." (© 1995-2011, The Jerusalem Post 06/14/12)