Israeli marines stormed a Turkish aid ship bound for Gaza on Monday and 10 pro-Palestinian activists were killed, triggering a diplomatic crisis and plans for an emergency UN Security Council sessions.
European nations, as well as the UN and Turkey, voiced outrage at the bloody end to the international campaigners’ bid to break Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip. Its navy stopped six ships ferrying 700 people and 10,000 tonnes of supplies toward the Palestinian enclave.
Once-close Muslim ally Turkey accused Israel of “terrorism” in international waters, and the UN Security Council prepared an emergency session. But Washington, Israel’s powerful friend, said only that it regretted the loss of life and was looking into the “tragedy”.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who was in Canada and expressed full support for the naval operation, cut short a visit to North America that was to have ended Tuesday with a White House meeting with US President Barack Obama. As the captured foreign vessels were escorted into Israel’s port of Ashdod, accounts were sketchy of the pre-dawn operation, some 120 km out in the Mediterranean. Marines stormed aboard from dinghies and rappelled down from helicopters. Senior Israeli defence officials said 10 activists died on the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish cruise ship carrying 581 people, after commandos came under fire, including with weapons that the activists had snatched from the boarding party. Seven of the troops and 20 protesters were injured.