Israel on Thursday rejected calls from the United Nations and others for an international investigation of its deadly raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla but left the door open to foreign involvement.

Israel held a dress rehearsal for disaster on Sunday, beginning a defence drill to test the response of soldiers, emergency crews and civilians to simulated missile barrages, terrorist attacks and chemical strikes.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hawkish coalition partners vowed on Thursday to keep building Jewish homes and demolishing unauthorised Palestinian homes in contested east Jerusalem — des